Nutritional risk and clinical outcomes in critically ill adult patients with COVID-19

Introduction: the COVID-19 pandemic put the world's population at risk. As the relationship between nutritional risk and clinical outcomes in critically ill patients with COVID-19 is still poorly understood, a multidisciplinary research team of the Argentine Society of Intensive Care (SATI) conducted a multicenter study aimed to define nutritional features, and to evaluate the relationship between nutritional risk and relevant clinical outcomes for COVID-19 patients in an intensive care unit (ICU). Methods: a multicenter, prospective, observational study including twelve Argentinian ICUs was conducted between March and October 2020. Inclusion criteria were: adult patients older than 18 years who were admitted to the ICU with a COVID-19 diagnosis were included. Clinical data included comorbidities scores, and nutritional screening tools such as the Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS) 2002, and the modified NUTRIC score (mNUTRIC SCORE) were used. In addition, clinical outcomes including overall mortality, mechanical ventilation (MV) days, and ICU and hospital length of stay (LOS) were recorded. Results: a total of 285 ICU patients met our inclusion criteria. Mean age was 61.24 (SD = 14.6) years; APACHE-II, 14.2 (SD = 6.6); Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), 2.3 (SD = 2.3). Most patients were admitted from the emergency room to the ICU. Hypertension, obesity, and diabetes were the most common comorbidities. Nutritional assessment showed that 36.9 % were SGA B+C, and 46 % were obese. Mean ICU LOS was 22.2 (SD = 19.5), and hospital LOS was 28.1 (SD = 21.9) days. Of all patients, 90.2 % underwent MV, and MV days were 20.6 (SD = 15.6). The univariate and multivariate analyses showed that risk factors for COVID-19 mortality were (odds ratio [95 % confidence interval]): SGA score of B or C: 2.13 [1.11-4.06], and NRS 2002 ≥ 3: 2.25 [1.01-5.01]. Conclusions: in the present study, nutritional status (SGA) and NRS 2002 were major mortality risk factors for CODIV-19 patients in the ICU.