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No Higher COVID-19 Risk for Autoimmune Patients

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eMediNexus    04 February 2021

A multicenter retrospective study has revealed that there is no increased risk for mechanical ventilation or death associated with COVID-19 among patients with autoimmune or chronic inflammatory diseases (OR 1.3, 95% CI 0.9-1.8, P=0.235).

The researchers; however, reported that treatment with systemic corticosteroids increased the risk significantly, with an odds ratio of 6.8 (95% CI 2.5-18.4, P<0.001). Investigators looked at electronic health record data from five hospitals in the Mount Sinai Health System in New York for patients testing positive for COVID-19 between March 1 and May 12, 2020. Overall, 6,792 patients were found to have PCR-confirmed COVID-19; 2.3% (159) of the patients had an underlying autoimmune or inflammatory disease, the most common diseases being rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and systemic lupus erythematosus. Patients with underlying diseases had higher odds of being admitted to the hospital (84.3% vs 68.1%, P<0.001), but they did not have higher rates of mechanical ventilation (28.3% vs 25.8%, P=0.534) or mortality (22.6% vs 21.8%, P=0.872). Steroids were found to be linked with about sevenfold increased risk of severe COVID-19; however, no association could be seen for biologics (OR 1.0, 95% CI 0.3-3.5, P=0.977) or nonbiologic immunosuppressive agents (OR 0.7, 95% CI 0.3-1.8, P=0.434). The findings are published online in ACR Open Rheumatology… (Medpage Today)

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