Predictive Significance of the Prognostic Nutritional Index (PNI) in Patients with Severe COVID-19

The prognostic nutritional index (PNI) has been reported to significantly correlate with poor survival and postoperative complications in patients with various diseases, but its relationship with mortality in COVID-19 patients has not been addressed.

A multicenter retrospective study involving patients with severe COVID-19 was conducted to investigate whether malnutrition and other clinical characteristics could be used to stratify the patients based on risk.

A total of 395 patients were included in our study, with 236 patients in the training cohort, 59 patients in the internal validation cohort, and 100 patients in the external validation cohort. During hospitalization, 63/236 (26.69%) and 14/59 (23.73%) patients died in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. PNI had the strongest relationships with the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level but was less strongly correlated with the CURB65, APACHE II, and SOFA scores. The baseline PNI score, platelet (PLT) count, LDH level, and PaO₂/FiO₂ (P/F) ratio were independent predictors of mortality in COVID-19 patients. A nomogram incorporating these four predictors showed good calibration and discrimination in the derivation and validation cohorts. A PNI score less than 33.405 was associated with a higher risk of mortality in severe COVID-19 patients in the Cox regression analysis.

These findings have implications for predicting the risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients at the time of admission and provide the first direct evidence that a lower PNI is related to a worse prognosis in severe COVID-19 patients.