Study patients and design
Seven patients who died from COVID-19 were included in this postmortem
study. All patients had confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection through the
reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test applied to
samples obtained with nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs. The RT-PCR
tests (Bio-Rad, Life Science Research, Hercules, CA) were performed by
trained technicians according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. All
patients with suggestive symptoms of COVID-19 were admitted to the
dedicated COVID-19 ward of our pandemic hospital. The local ethics
committee approved the study protocol (2017-KAEK-120/2/2020.G-039). The
written informed consent forms were signed by the legal guardians of all
included patients before the postmortem biopsy.