Neurological diseases as mortality predictive factors for patients with COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study

In the current study, we evaluated factors that increase the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patient death rate by analyzing the data from two cohort hospitals. In addition, we studied whether underlying neurological diseases are risk factors for death.

In this retrospective cohort study, we included 103 adult inpatients (aged ≥ 18 years). We evaluated differences in demographic data between surviving and non-surviving COVID-19 patients.

In a multivariate logistic analysis, age and the presence of chronic lung disease and Alzheimer's dementia (AD) were the only significant parameters for predicting COVID-19 non-survival (p < 0.05). However, hypertension, coronary vascular disease, dyslipidemia, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and history of taking angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) or angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, as well as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), were not significantly associated with the death of COVID-19 patients. The optimal cutoff value obtained from the maximum Youden index was 70 (sensitivity, 80.77%; specificity, 61.04%), and the odds ratio of non-survival increased 1.055 fold for every year of age.

Clinicians should closely monitor and manage the symptoms of COVID-19 patients who are over the age of 70 years or have chronic lung disease or AD.