Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Diabetes Mellitus , Cohort Studies , Diabetes Mellitus/epidemiology , Humans , Republic of Korea/epidemiology , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
The world is entering an era of disaster and chaos due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Since its first emergence in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, COVID-19 has swept through Asia and propagated throughout the world to Europe and North America. As of April 13, 1,773,084 people were infected and 111,652 people had died from COVID-19 globally, and new record levels of infection are being reported every day. Based on the data that have been amassed so far, the primary risk factors for a severe disease course or even mortality from COVID-19 are underlying diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. As the global prevalence of diabetes continues to increase, patients with endocrine diseases such as diabetes mellitus and those who are on long-term corticosteroid therapy due to adrenal insufficiency or hypopituitarism are at risk for a poor prognosis of COVID-19. As endocrinologists, we would like to briefly review the current knowledge about the relationship between COVID-19 and endocrine diseases and to discuss what we can do for the safety and health of our patients with endocrine diseases in this globally threatening situation.
Subject(s)
Betacoronavirus , Coronavirus Infections/epidemiology , Coronavirus Infections/metabolism , Endocrine System Diseases/epidemiology , Endocrine System Diseases/metabolism , Endocrinologists/trends , Pneumonia, Viral/epidemiology , Pneumonia, Viral/metabolism , COVID-19 , Coronavirus Infections/diagnosis , Diabetes Mellitus/diagnosis , Diabetes Mellitus/epidemiology , Diabetes Mellitus/metabolism , Endocrine System Diseases/diagnosis , Humans , Hypertension/diagnosis , Hypertension/epidemiology , Hypertension/metabolism , Pandemics , Pneumonia, Viral/diagnosis , Risk Factors , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Background: Inconsistent results have been observed regarding the independent effect of diabetes on the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We conducted a nationwide population-based cohort study to evaluate the relationship between diabetes and COVID-19 severity in South Korea. METHODS: Patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 aged ≥30 years were enrolled and medical claims data were obtained from the Korean Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Hospitalization, oxygen treatment, ventilator application, and mortality were assessed as severity outcomes. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed after adjusting for age, sex, and comorbidities. RESULTS: Of 5,307 COVID-19 patients, the mean age was 56.0±14.4 years, 2,043 (38.5%) were male, and 770 (14.5%) had diabetes. The number of patients who were hospitalized, who received oxygen, who required ventilator support, and who died was 4,986 (94.0%), 884 (16.7%), 121 (2.3%), and 211 (4.0%), respectively. The proportion of patients with diabetes in the abovementioned outcome groups was 14.7%, 28.1%, 41.3%, 44.6%, showing an increasing trend according to outcome severity. In multivariate analyses, diabetes was associated with worse outcomes, with an adjusted odds ratio (aOR) of 1.349 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.099 to 1.656; P=0.004) for oxygen treatment, an aOR of 1.930 (95% CI, 1.276 to 2.915; P<0.001) for ventilator use, and an aOR of 2.659 (95% CI, 1.896 to 3.729; P<0.001) for mortality. CONCLUSION: Diabetes was associated with worse clinical outcomes in Korean patients with COVID-19, independent of other comorbidities. Therefore, patients with diabetes and COVID-19 should be treated with caution.