Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
Role of testosterone in SARS-CoV-2 infection: A key pathogenic factor and a biomarker for severe pneumonia
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is characterized by a huge range of clinical manifestations. Many pathogenetic pathways and virulence mechanisms are still unknown. Nevertheless, it is known that the host’s immune system plays a key role (Blanco-Melo et al., 2020). Notably, age, comorbidities (e.g. diabetes mellitus, obesity), smoking habits and male sex (Rod et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2020) are the fundamental independent risk factors for death from coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) (Zhou et al., 2020).Risk and predictive factors of prolonged viral RNA shedding in upper respiratory specimens in a large cohort of COVID-19 patients admitted to an Italian reference hospital
The emergence and rapid spread of the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has become a global health emergency and one of our century's greatest challenges. As of February 24, 2021, approximately 111 million confirmed cases and more than 2.4 million deaths had been reported worldwide (Anon, 2020).
