Asthma and COVID-19; different entities, same outcome: a meta-analysis of 107,983 patients

• Published in: The Journal of asthma 2022-05, Vol.59 (5), p.851-858
• Main Authors: Hussein, Mohammad H., Elshazli, Rami M., Attia, Abdallah S., Nguyen, Therese P., Aboueisha, Mohamed, Munshi, Ruhul, Toraih, Eman A., Fawzy, Manal S., Kandil, Emad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ARDS; asthma; Asthma - epidemiology; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - therapy; Humans; ICU; intubation; Middle Aged; Obesity - epidemiology; Retrospective Studies; SARS-CoV-2
• ISSN: 0277-0903; 1532-4303
• DOI: 10.1080/02770903.2021.1881970

There are varying reports of the prevalence and effect of comorbid asthma in coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients. We sought to conduct a meta-analysis comparing asthmatic and non-asthmatic patients to determine the clinical significance of preexisting asthma in COVID-19 patients. Online databases PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Scopus, were searched up to July 15, 2020, for papers comparing asthma versus non-asthma COVID-19 patients. According to prespecified inclusion criteria, this analysis included eleven retrospective studies with 107,983 COVID-19 patients. Subgroup analysis was performed based on age groups. The mean age of the patients was 59.9 years (95%CI = 51.9-67.9). Across studies, the prevalence of asthma was 11.2% (95%CI: 9.1%-13.3%) among COVID-19 patients who attended the hospitals. Asthma patients were more likely to be younger (SMD = −0.36, 95%CI = −0.61 to −0.10, p = 0.005), and obese (OR = 1.98, 95%CI = 1.54-2.55, p