Therapy Areas: Infectious Diseases
Risk Factors for Severe COVID-19 in Hospitalized Adults Differ by Age, Study Finds
28 April 2022 - - A just-published study provides previously unknown answers about which hospitalized COVID-19 patients are most likely to need mechanical ventilation or to die, Seattle-based non-profit biomedical research organization the Institute for Systems Biology said.

Researchers showed that vital signs and lab results at the time of hospital admission are the most accurate predictors of disease severity.

Molani and team looked at risk factors based on two age groups of hospitalized patients, one being between 18 and 50 years old and the other being 50 or older, and found that risk factors that lead to severe cases and/or death differ with younger vs. older patients.

For example, body mass index is a more important predictor of COVID-19 severity for younger patients than for older patients.

Many comorbidities such as malignancy, cardiomyopathy and COPD have higher odds ratios for severe outcomes in younger patients than in older patients.

For both older and younger patients, vital signs, early hospital laboratory tests and the need for supplemental oxygen are more useful for predicting severe outcomes than comorbidities and demographics.

The findings are meaningful in the clinical setting.

The retrospective study examined the electronic health records of more than 6,900 patients between June 31 and November 15 of 2021.

The vast majority of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 92% of the younger patients and 75% of the older patients had not received COVID-19 vaccination.

Existing risk models for hospitalized patients were developed early on in the pandemic. This research addresses the need for updated models that reflect current standard of care for COVID-19, where fewer uncommon labs are used, and more therapeutic treatment options are available.

Future investigations will benefit from finer granularity of subdivisions by age, BMI, and more detailed variables on conditions and drugs that affect individual immune response.

The collaborative study was conducted by researchers at ISB, Swedish Providence, Onegevity and Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

Institute for Systems Biology is a Seattle-based non-profit biomedical research organization. We focus on some of the most pressing issues in human health, including aging, brain health, cancer, COVID-19, and many infectious diseases.

ISB is an affiliate of Providence, one of the nation's largest not-for-profit health care systems.
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