Response to: 'Comment on Ye et al ' Presence of respiratory failure of COVID-19 infection in patients with rheumatism in Wuhan, China'' by Chen et al .

We appreciate the valuable comments from Chen et al on our recent study about the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 cases with rheumatic disease.1 They highlight an important point about the sample size of patients with rheumatism infected with COVID-19 in our study. We agree that the sample size was relatively small, although we have included all such cases in Tongji Hospital, the hospital that admitted the most patients with COVID-19 in China. We acknowledged this limitation in the discussion of the paper.2 With the urgent pandemic of COVID-19, the aim of this study is to provide a timely report to present the clinical features of patients with rheumatism infected with COVID-19. The clinical manifestation of COVID-19 cases with rheumatic disease in Wuhan, the first COVID-19 epicentre in the world, may provide important information for disease management in patients with rheumatic disease in other areas of the world. In our report, we noticed that respiratory failure was more common in patients with rheumatism (38% vs 10%, p<0.001) infected with COVID-19, although the duration of hospital stay and mortality were similar between patients with rheumatic disease and those without rheumatic disease.2 These results were confirmed by subsequent studies in other areas of the world.3 4 An …