Key info


Date:
29 April 2020

Authors:
Pablo N Perez-Guzman, Anna Daunt, Sujit Mukherjee, Peter Crook, Roberta Forlano, Mara D Kont, Alessandra Løchen, Michaela Vollmer, Paul Middleton, Rebekah Judge, Chris Harlow, Anet Soubieres, Graham Cooke, Peter J White, Timothy B Hallett, Paul Aylin, Neil Ferguson, Katharina Hauck, Mark Thursz, Shevanthi Nayagam1

1Correspondence:
s.nayagam01@imperial.ac.uk

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WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics, Division of Digestive Diseases, Department of Metabolism Digestion and Reproduction, Department of Infectious Diseases, Dr Foster Unit, NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Imperial College London

Now published in Clinical Infectious Diseases; 07-08-2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1091

Summary

Clinical characteristics and determinants of outcomes for hospitalised COVID-19 patients in the UK are important to guide the national response to this current pandemic and emerging evidence suggests ethnic minorities might be disproportionately affected. We describe the characteristics and outcomes of patients hospitalised for COVID-19 in three large London hospitals with a multi-ethnic catchment population.

We performed a retrospective cohort study on all patients hospitalised with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust between February 25 and April 5, 2020. Outcomes were recorded as of April 19, 2020. Logistic regression models, survival analyses and cumulative competing risk analyses were performed to evaluate factors associated with COVID-19 hospital mortality.

Of 520 patients in this cohort (median age 67 years, (IQR 26) and 62% male), 302 (68%) had been discharged alive, 144 (32%) died and 74 (14%) were still hospitalised at the time of censoring. Increasing age (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2·16, 95%CI 1·50-3·12), severe hypoxia (aOR 3·75, 95%CI 1·80-7·80), low platelets (increase in aOR 1·54, 95%CI 1·18, 2·04, for every x109/L), reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (aOR 4·11, 95%CI 1·58-10·69), bilirubin >21mmol/L (aOR 2·32, 95%CI 1·05-5·14) and low albumin (increase in aOR 1·30, 95%CI 0·99, 1·69, for every g/L) were associated with increased risk of in-hospital mortality. Individual comorbidities were not independently associated with risk of death. Regarding ethnicity, 209 (40%) were from a black and Asian minority, for 115 (22%) ethnicity was unknown and 196 (38%) patients were white. Compared to the latter, black patients were significantly younger and had fewer comorbidities. Whilst the crude OR of death of black compared to white patients was not significant (1·14, 95%CI 0·69-1·88, p=0.62), adjusting for age and comorbidity showed a trend towards significance (aOR 1·72, 95%CI 0·98-3·02, p=0.06) and further accounting for admission severity (Early Warning Score) showed a significant difference (aOR 1·83 95% CI 1·02-3·30, p=0.04).

In one of the first studies to describe the characteristics and predictors of outcome for hospitalised COVID-19 patients in the UK, we find that older age, male sex and admission hypoxia, thrombocytopenia, renal failure, hypoalbuminaemia and raised bilirubin are associated with increased odds of death. Ethnic minority groups were over-represented in our cohort and, compared to whites, people of black ethnicity may be at increased odds of mortality. Further research is urgently needed to investigate these associations on a larger scale.

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