Clinical Features and Outcome of Low and High Corticosteroids in Admitted COVID-19 Patients

Authors

Salma AlBahrani^{1, 2}, Jaffar A. Al-Tawfiq^{3, 4, 5, *,} , Arulanantham Zachariah Jebakumar^6, , Mohammed Alghamdi¹, Nawaf Zakary¹, Mariam Seria¹, Abdulrahman Alrowis¹

¹Department of Medicine, King Fahad Military Medical Complex, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

²Infectious Disease Unit, King Fahad Military Medical Complex, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

³Infectious Disease Unit, Specialty Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran 31311, Saudi Arabia

⁴Infectious Disease Division, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA

⁵Infectious Disease Division, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

⁶Postgraduate Studies and Research, Prince Sultan Military College of Health Sciences, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

^*Corresponding author. Email: jaffar.tawfiq@jhah.com; jaltawfi@yahoo.com

DOI

10.2991/jegh.k.210521.001How to use a DOI?

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; steroid; high-dose steroid

Abstract

Introduction: There is no specific anti-viral therapies for 2019 Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) infection. Here, we compared patients receiving steroids at different dosages versus no steroids in severe and critical COVID-19 patients.

Methods: We retrospectively studied COVID-19 patients who received low-dose or high-dose corticosteroid therapy compared to no steroid.

Results: The study period, June–August 2020, included 169 patients with COVID-19 were included and there were 39.1% female and 60.9% male with an average age of 53.1 years. The distribution of cases was as follows: high-dose 39 (23.1%), low-dose 54 (32.0%), and no steroid 76 (45.5%). Of all the patients, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission was for 31 (18.3%), nine (5.3%) required intubation, and 52 (30.8%) had no comorbidities. There is no difference in the mean age between the different groups. However, those being treated with steroid were more likely to have a high sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score (0.37 ± 0.68, 0.36 ± 0.67 and 0.04 ± 0.34, for low-dose, high-dose steroid and no steroid groups, respectively (p = 0.001). Cox regression was not possible as the mortality rate was very low (3/169; 1.78%) and none of the multivariate methods would be possible. However, there was a significant difference in the hospital Length of stay (LOS) and the ICU LOS.

Conclusion: Cox regression was not possible as the mortality rate was very low (1.78%) and none of the multivariate methods would be possible as the model will not converge. However, in t-test only, intubation was associated risk of mortality.

Copyright

© 2021 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press International B.V.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Salma AlBahrani
AU  - Jaffar A. Al-Tawfiq
AU  - Arulanantham Zachariah Jebakumar
AU  - Mohammed Alghamdi
AU  - Nawaf Zakary
AU  - Mariam Seria
AU  - Abdulrahman Alrowis
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/02
TI  - Clinical Features and Outcome of Low and High Corticosteroids in Admitted COVID-19 Patients
JO  - Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health
SP  - 316
EP  - 319
VL  - 11
IS  - 3
SN  - 2210-6014
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/jegh.k.210521.001
DO  - 10.2991/jegh.k.210521.001
ID  - AlBahrani2021
ER  -