Mortality and other outcomes of patients with coronavirus disease pneumonia admitted to the emergency department: A prospective observational Brazilian study

• Published in: PLoS ONE 2021, Vol.16 (1), p.e0244532
• Main Authors: Brandão Neto, Rodrigo A, Marchini, Julio F, Marino, Lucas O, Alencar, Julio C. G, Lazar Neto, Felippe, Ribeiro, Sabrina, Salvetti, Fernando V, Rahhal, Hassan, Gomez Gomez, Luz Marina, Bueno, Caue G, Faria, Carine C, da Cunha, Victor P, Padrão, Eduardo, Velasco, Irineu T, de Souza, Heraldo Possolo, Taylor, Walter R
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bacterial pneumonia; Care and treatment; Patient outcomes; Pneumonia
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244532

Background The first cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Brazil were diagnosed in February 2020. Our Emergency Department (ED) was designated as a COVID-19 exclusive service. We report our first 500 confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia patients. Methods From 14 March to 16 May 2020, we enrolled all patients admitted to our ED that had a diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. Infection was confirmed via nasopharyngeal swabs or tracheal aspirate PCR. The outcomes included hospital discharge, invasive mechanical ventilation, and in-hospital death, among others. Results From 2219 patients received in the ED, we included 506 with confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia. We found that 333 patients were discharged home (65.9%), 153 died (30.2%), and 20 (3.9%) remained in the hospital. A total of 300 patients (59.3%) required ICU admission, and 227 (44.9%) needed invasive ventilation. The multivariate analysis found age, number of comorbidities, extension of ground glass opacities on chest CT and troponin with a direct relationship with all-cause mortality, whereas dysgeusia, use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin-ii receptor blocker and number of lymphocytes with an inverse relationship with all-cause mortality Conclusions This was a sample of severe patients with COVID-19, with 59.2% admitted to the ICU and 41.5% requiring mechanical ventilator support. We were able to ascertain the outcome in majority (96%) of patients. While the overall mortality was 30.2%, mortality for intubated patients was 55.9%. Multivariate analysis agreed with data found in other studies although the use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin-ii receptor blocker as a protective factor could be promising but would need further studies. Trial registration The study was registered in the Brazilian registry of clinical trials: RBR-5d4dj5.