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RESEARCH PRODUCT
The Deadly Quartet (Covid-19, Old Age, Lung Disease, and Heart Failure) Explains Why Coronavirus-Related Mortality in Northern Italy Was So High
Francesco BarillàPier Paolo BassareoMarcello ChiocchiJawahar L. MehtaFrancesco RomeoDomenico SergiGiuseppe Calcaterrasubject
Lung Diseases0301 basic medicineCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)PopulationcoronavirusheartDiseasemedicine.disease_causeArticleDisease OutbreakslungScientific evidenceSettore MED/1103 medical and health sciences0302 clinical medicineRisk FactorsHumansMedicineChinaeducationAgedCoronavirusHeart Failureeducation.field_of_studySARS-CoV-2business.industryAge FactorsCOVID-19OutbreakGeneral Medicinemedicine.diseasemortality030104 developmental biologyItaly030220 oncology & carcinogenesisHeart failureCardiology and Cardiovascular MedicinebusinessDemographydescription
Since its outbreak in China at the end of 2019, the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was characterized by both easy spreading and high mortality. The latter proved to be way more elevated in the North of Italy -with a peak of 18.4% in region Lombardia and even 31% in the city of Bergamo and surrounding county- than in the rest of the world. In an attempt to conceptualize the reasons for such a dramatic situation, four key elements have been identified: COVID-19 itself, old age, lung disease, and heart failure. Their harmful combination has been named “The deadly quartet”. The underlying risk factors, among which a lot of them are distinctive features of the population in northern Italy, have been summarized as “unmodifiable”, “partially modifiable”, and “modifiable”, for the sake of clarity. Up-to-date scientific evidence in this field has been described in the form of a narrative and easy-to-read review.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-04-25 | Current Cardiology Reviews |