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.