New Study Finds 12% Death Rates from SARS

A retrospective study by researchers in Hong Kong has found that patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had a mortality rate of 12%, higher than the rate initially reported.

The study involved 267 patients with probable (40 cases) or confirmed (227 cases) SARS admitted to a Hong Kong hospital. The researchers followed the patients for three months after their first hospitalization, finding that 32 (12%) died. While all died of respiratory failure, some deaths were complicated by kidney failure (44%), related infections (19%), or septicemia (25%).

The Hong Kong definition was different than that used by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control (Atlanta, GA, USA) in not requiring the presence of respiratory symptoms for diagnosis. In fact, 13% of patients in the study did not enter with respiratory symptoms, so the researchers call for a refinement of case definition.

The study, published in the September 2, 2003, online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, was conducted by doctors and researchers from hospitals in Hong Kong.




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