Pulmonary embolism in patients with COVID-19: characteristics and outcomes in the Cardio-COVID Italy multicenter study.
Clin Res Cardiol
; 110(7): 1020-1028, 2021 Jul.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-898011
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Pulmonary embolism (PE) has been described in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) critically ill patients, but the evidence from more heterogeneous cohorts is limited.METHODS:
Data were retrospectively obtained from consecutive COVID-19 patients admitted to 13 Cardiology Units in Italy, from March 1st to April 9th, 2020, and followed until in-hospital death, discharge, or April 23rd, 2020. The association of baseline variables with computed tomography-confirmed PE was investigated by Cox hazards regression analysis. The relationship between D-dimer levels and PE incidence was evaluated using restricted cubic splines models.RESULTS:
The study included 689 patients (67.3 ± 13.2 year-old, 69.4% males), of whom 43.6% were non-invasively ventilated and 15.8% invasively. 52 (7.5%) had PE over 15 (9-24) days of follow-up. Compared with those without PE, these subjects had younger age, higher BMI, less often heart failure and chronic kidney disease, more severe cardio-pulmonary involvement, and higher admission D-dimer [4344 (1099-15,118) vs. 818.5 (417-1460) ng/mL, p < 0.001]. They also received more frequently darunavir/ritonavir, tocilizumab and ventilation support. Furthermore, they faced more bleeding episodes requiring transfusion (15.6% vs. 5.1%, p < 0.001) and non-significantly higher in-hospital mortality (34.6% vs. 22.9%, p = 0.06). In multivariate regression, only D-dimer was associated with PE (HR 1.72, 95% CI 1.13-2.62; p = 0.01). The relation between D-dimer concentrations and PE incidence was linear, without inflection point. Only two subjects had a baseline D-dimer < 500 ng/mL.CONCLUSIONS:
PE occurs in a sizable proportion of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The implications of bleeding events and the role of D-dimer in this population need to be clarified.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pulmonary Embolism
/
Fibrin Fibrinogen Degradation Products
/
COVID-19
/
Hospitalization
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Clin Res Cardiol
Journal subject:
Cardiology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S00392-020-01766-y
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