Laboratory and clinical characteristics of the patients
Seven deceased COVID-19 patients (two females) were included in this postmortem biopsy study. The median age was 62 years (range: 39–93 years). All patients had comorbid chronic medical conditions. Hypertension was the most common comorbidity and was present in all patients, followed by diabetes mellitus in five out of the seven patients. One patient died in the ward, and the remaining patients died in the ICU. As part of the national guideline issued by the Ministry of Health of Turkey, all patients were treated with the following drug protocol: azithromycin + hydroxychloroquine + favipiravir. Depending on the severity of the disease and at the caring physician’s discretion, some patients were treated with tocilizumab and/or convalescent plasma donated by COVID-19 survivors. Patients who were connected to a mechanical ventilator in the ICU were administered 1 mg/kg body weight of methylprednisolone. Patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics are shown in Table 1 .