qSOFA score poorly predicts critical progression in COVID-19 patients

In December 2019, the new virus infection coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged. Simple clinical risk scores may improve the management of COVID-19 patients. Therefore, the aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA) score, which is well established for other diseases, as an early risk assessment tool predicting a severe course of COVID-19.

We retrospectively analyzed data from adult COVID-19 patients hospitalized between March and July 2020. A critical disease progress was defined as admission to intensive care unit (ICU) or death.

Of 64 COVID-19 patients, 33% (21/64) had a critical disease progression from which 13 patients had to be transferred to ICU. The COVID-19-associated mortality rate was 20%, increasing to 39% after ICU admission. All patients without a critical progress had a qSOFA score ≤ 1 at admission. Patients with a critical progress had in only 14% (3/21) and in 20% (3/15) of cases a qSOFA score ≥ 2 at admission (p = 0.023) or when measured directly before critical progression, respectively, while 95% (20/21) of patients with critical progress had an impairment oxygen saturation (SO₂) at admission time requiring oxygen supplementation.

A low qSOFA score cannot be used to assume short-term stable or noncritical disease status in COVID-19.