Student or educator? Sign up with your school email and get 6 months of Pro free.
Cited by 512

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 36 of the 36 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Viral presence and immunopathology in patients with lethal COVID-19: a prospective autopsy cohort study

Open access
Schurink, Bernadette, Roos, Eva, Radonic, Teodora, Barbe, Ellis, Bouman, Catherine S C, de Boer, Hans H, de Bree, Godelieve J, Bulle, Esther B, Aronica, Eleonora M, Florquin, Sandrine, Fronczek, Judith, Heunks, Leo M A, de Jong, Menno D, Guo, Lihui, du Long, Romy, Lutter, Rene, Molenaar, Pam C G, Neefjes-Borst, E Andra, Niessen, Hans W M, van Noesel, Carel J M, Roelofs, Joris J T H, Snijder, Eric J, Soer, Eline C, Verheij, Joanne, Vlaar, Alexander P J, Vos, Wim, van der Wel, Nicole N, van der Wal, Allard C, van der Valk, Paul, Bugiani, Marianna·2020·The Lancet Microbe

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) targets multiple organs and causes severe coagulopathy. Histopathological organ changes might not only be attributable to a direct virus-induced effect, but also the immune response. The aims of this study were to assess the duration of viral presence, identify the extent of inflammatory response, and investigate the underlying cause of coagulopathy. METHODS: This prospective autopsy cohort study was done at Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC), the Netherlands. With informed consent from relatives, full body autopsy was done on 21 patients with COVID-19 for whom autopsy was requested between March 9 and May 18, 2020. In addition to histopathological evaluation of organ damage, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein and the composition of the immune infiltrate and thrombi were assessed, and all were linked to disease course. FINDINGS: Our cohort (n=21) included 16 (76%) men, and median age was 68 years (range 41-78). Median disease course (time from onset of symptoms to death) was 22 days (range 5-44 days). In 11 patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 tropism, SARS-CoV-2 infected cells were present in multiple organs, most abundantly in the lungs, but presence in the lungs became sporadic with increased disease course. Other SARS-CoV-2-positive organs included the upper respiratory tract, heart, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract. In histological analyses of organs (sampled from nine to 21 patients per organ), an extensive inflammatory response was present in the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, and brain. In the brain, extensive inflammation was seen in the olfactory bulbs and medulla oblongata. Thrombi and neutrophilic plugs were present in the lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, spleen, and brain and were most frequently observed late in the disease course (15 patients with thrombi, median disease course 22 days [5-44]; ten patients with neutrophilic plugs, 21 days [5-44]). Neutrophilic plugs were observed in two forms: solely composed of neutrophils with neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), or as aggregates of NETs and platelets.. INTERPRETATION: In patients with lethal COVID-19, an extensive systemic inflammatory response was present, with a continued presence of neutrophils and NETs. However, SARS-CoV-2-infected cells were only sporadically present at late stages of COVID-19. This suggests a maladaptive immune response and substantiates the evidence for immunomodulation as a target in the treatment of severe COVID-19. FUNDING: Amsterdam UMC Corona Research Fund.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/s2666-5247(20)30144-0

Cites

36 of 36 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 36 references

Cited by

See all 512

Metadata

Authors
Schurink, B., Roos, E., Radonic, T., Barbe, E., Bouman, C. S. C., de Boer, H. H., de Bree, G. J., Bulle, E. B., Aronica, E. M., Florquin, S., Fronczek, J., Heunks, L. M. A., de Jong, M. D., Guo, L., du Long, R., Lutter, R., Molenaar, P. C. G., Neefjes-Borst, E. A., Niessen, H. W. M., van Noesel, C. J. M., Roelofs, J. J. T. H., Snijder, E. J., Soer, E. C., Verheij, J., Vlaar, A. P. J., Vos, W., van der Wel, N. N., van der Wal, A. C., van der Valk, P., & Bugiani, M.
Venue
The Lancet Microbe
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-11
Volume
1
Issue
7
Pages
e290-e299
ISSN
2666-5247 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3088800697
Cited by
512
References
36
FWCI
12.49
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Viral presence and immunopathology in patients with lethal COVID-19: a prospective autopsy cohort study. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1016/s2666-5247(20)30144-0
The paper
Schurink, B., Roos, E., Radonic, T., Barbe, E., Bouman, C. S. C., de Boer, H. H., de Bree, G. J., Bulle, E. B., Aronica, E. M., Florquin, S., Fronczek, J., Heunks, L. M. A., de Jong, M. D., Guo, L., du Long, R., Lutter, R., Molenaar, P. C. G., Neefjes-Borst, E. A., Niessen, H. W. M., . . . Bugiani, M. (2020). Viral presence and immunopathology in patients with lethal COVID-19: a prospective autopsy cohort study. The Lancet Microbe. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2666-5247(20)30144-0

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.