Acute uncontrolled hyperglycemia, a non-specific presentation and predictor of covid-19 severity- a report of three cases
1 Kumasi South Hospital P.O. Box 1908, Atonsu Agogo, Kumasi, Ghana.
2 Department of Internal Medicine School of Medicine and Dentistry, College of Health Sciences Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology School of Medicine and Dentistry, College of Health Sciences Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
Case Study
GSC Advanced Research and Reviews, 2021, 06(01), 017-020.
Article DOI: 10.30574/gscarr.2021.6.1.0001
Publication history:
Received on 01 January 2021; revised on 08 January 2021; accepted on 09 January 2021
Abstract:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS Cov-2) which currently has caused over 76 million cases with over 1.6 million people dead worldwide. COVID-19 can manifest with several non-specific clinical presentations, posing a diagnostic challenge. Several studies have shown an increased COVID-19 severity in patients with Diabetes mellitus. However, some patients with COVID-19 severity may present with new-onset Diabetes mellitus or worsening blood glucose control in a known diabetic. There are various mechanisms by which the SARS Cov-2 causes hyperglycemia in infected patients. This can lead to hyperglycemia as a presentation of COVID-19 in the absence of specific signs and symptoms. We present three cases: two of them initially presented with acute onset hyperglycemia and were diagnosed with Diabetes mellitus but shortly developed clinical manifestations that led to the suspicion of COVID-19 and a positive COVID-19 RT-PCR test. The third was a diabetic with previously good glycaemic control which suddenly worsened for no reason and shortly after, also developed clinical manifestations that led to the suspicion of COVID-19 which was later confirmed.
We recommend that patients with acute hyperglycemia state and/or worsening blood glucose control in patients with previously well controlled Diabetes mellitus should be evaluated for COVID-19 in order to reduce morbidity and mortality as hyperglycemia confers an increased disease severity
Keywords:
Coronavirus disease 2019; COVID-19; Hyperglycemia; Diabetes mellitus; Case reports
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Copyright © 2021 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0
