Clinical characteristics of critically ill patients with COVID-19

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses a major challenge for healthcare systems. In South America, local information about the incidence and clinical characteristics of critically ill patients diagnosed with COVID-19 is still limited. In this observational and retrospective study, we aimed to describe critically ill patients' clinical and respiratory characteristics with COVID-19. The study was performed over 6 months in an intensive care unit (ICU) of a high complexity hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Patients older than 18 years with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 by reverse tran scriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 were included in the study. Demographic characteristics such as sex and age, comorbidities, laboratory results, imaging results, ventilatory mechanics data, complications, and mortality were recorded. A total of 168 critically ill patients with COVID-19 were included. Sixty-six percent were men with a median age of 65 years (58-75); 79.7% had at least one comorbidity. The most frequent comorbidity was arterial hypertension, affecting 52.4%. A 67.9% required invasive mechanical ventilation (MV), and no one was treated with non-invasive ventilation. Most of the patients in MV (73.7%) required neuromuscular blockade due to severe hypoxemia. A 36% was ventilated in the prone position. The length of stay in the ICU was 13 days (6-24) and ICU's mortality was 25%.