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Does Baseline Diuretics Use Affect Prognosis in Patients With COVID-19?
Nirmal Guragai1, Rahul Vasudev1, Kevin Hosein1
1Cardiology, St Joseph University Medical Center, Paterson, USA.
Insights
Prior use of diuretics did not impact COVID-19 patient outcomes. This study found no significant difference in mortality or illness severity after adjusting for confounding factors in coronavirus disease 2019 patients.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Infectious Diseases
- Pharmacology
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic presents a global healthcare challenge.
- Previous research explored angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers in COVID-19.
- The impact of prior diuretic use on COVID-19 patient mortality was previously unknown.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of baseline diuretic use on mortality and illness severity in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
- To analyze the association between diuretic use and in-hospital survival rates for coronavirus disease 2019.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective study conducted in three Northern New Jersey hospitals from March 15, 2020, to April 30, 2020.
- Included 313 patients admitted with COVID-19, comparing outcomes between those taking diuretics and those not.
- Primary outcome: in-hospital mortality; Secondary outcome: COVID-19 illness severity.
Main Results:
- Unadjusted analysis showed higher mortality (57.35% vs 37.96%) and severe illness (79.41% vs 47.35%) in patients taking diuretics.
- After adjusting for confounding factors, no significant difference in mortality or severity was observed between the groups.
- The p-value for mortality difference was 0.0042, and for severe illness was <.0001 in unadjusted analysis.
Conclusions:
- Baseline use of diuretics has no discernible effect on the prognosis of COVID-19.
- The study suggests that diuretics do not influence mortality or severity in patients admitted with coronavirus disease 2019.
- Further research may be warranted to confirm these findings in diverse patient populations.
Abstract:
The rapid emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become the biggest healthcare crisis of the last century, resulting in thousands of deaths worldwide. There have been studies that evaluated the role of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors (ACEi) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) in treating patients with COVID-19. However, the prior use of diuretics and their effect on mortality in this setting remains unknown. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of diuretics in patients admitted with COVID-19. The current study was conducted between March 15, 2020, and April 30, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in three different hospitals in Northern New Jersey, USA. The primary outcome was survival or in-hospital mortality from COVID-19 from the day of admission. The secondary outcome was severe or non-severe illness from COVID-19. This retrospective study included a total of 313 patients with a median age of 61.3 ± 14.6 years. There was a total of 68 patients taking diuretics at home and 245 patients who were not taking diuretics. There was a total of 39 (57.35%) deaths in patients taking diuretics as compared to 93 (37.96%) deaths in patients not taking diuretics (p-value 0.0042). Also, 54 (79.41%) patients who took diuretics had severe COVID-19 illness as compared to 116 (47.35%) who did not take diuretics (p-value <.0001). However, after adjusting for the confounding factors, there was no difference in mortality or severity of illness in COVID-19 patients taking diuretics at the time of admission. In conclusion, there was no effect of the baseline use of diuretics in the prognosis of COVID-19.
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