Abstract
Aims
We investigated the incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics, and outcomes of pulmonary embolism (PE) in patients with COVID-19 attending emergency departments (EDs), before ...hospitalization.
Methods and Results
We retrospectively reviewed all COVID-19 patients diagnosed with PE in 62 Spanish EDs (20% of Spanish EDs, case group) during the first COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 patients without PE and non-COVID-19 patients with PE were included as control groups. Adjusted comparisons for baseline characteristics, acute episode characteristics, and outcomes were made between cases and randomly selected controls (1:1 ratio). We identified 368 PE in 74 814 patients with COVID-19 attending EDs (4.92‰). The standardized incidence of PE in the COVID-19 population resulted in 310 per 100 000 person-years, significantly higher than that observed in the non-COVID-19 population 35 per 100 000 person-years; odds ratio (OR) 8.95 for PE in the COVID-19 population, 95% confidence interval (CI) 8.51–9.41. Several characteristics in COVID-19 patients were independently associated with PE, the strongest being D-dimer >1000 ng/mL, and chest pain (direct association) and chronic heart failure (inverse association). COVID-19 patients with PE differed from non-COVID-19 patients with PE in 16 characteristics, most directly related to COVID-19 infection; remarkably, D-dimer >1000 ng/mL, leg swelling/pain, and PE risk factors were significantly less present. PE in COVID-19 patients affected smaller pulmonary arteries than in non-COVID-19 patients, although right ventricular dysfunction was similar in both groups. In-hospital mortality in cases (16.0%) was similar to COVID-19 patients without PE (16.6%; OR 0.96, 95% CI 0.65–1.42; and 11.4% in a subgroup of COVID-19 patients with PE ruled out by scanner, OR 1.48, 95% CI 0.97–2.27), but higher than in non-COVID-19 patients with PE (6.5%; OR 2.74, 95% CI 1.66–4.51). Adjustment for differences in baseline and acute episode characteristics and sensitivity analysis reported very similar associations.
Conclusions
PE in COVID-19 patients at ED presentation is unusual (about 0.5%), but incidence is approximately ninefold higher than in the general (non-COVID-19) population. Moreover, risk factors and leg symptoms are less frequent, D-dimer increase is lower and emboli involve smaller pulmonary arteries. While PE probably does not increase the mortality of COVID-19 patients, mortality is higher in COVID-19 than in non-COVID-19 patients with PE.
•The type of household is associated with elderly patients' prognosis at one year.•Living in a nursing home is associated with higher mortality.•Living at home but not alone is associated with a ...lower rate of rehospitalization/revisit.
To investigate whether the type of household is associated with prognosis at one year in patients ≥65 years of age discharged after medical consultation requiring emergency department care.
Data from the Emergency Department and Elder Needs (EDEN) cohort were used. This retrospective cohort included all patients ≥65 years of age seen in 52 Spanish emergency departments over one week (April 1–7, 2019) in whom the type of household was recorded and categorized as living at home alone, with relatives, with professional caregivers, or in a nursing home. Patient demographic and other baseline characteristics and management during the index emergency department episode were recorded and used to adjust the following 1-year outcomes: all-cause mortality, hospitalization and emergency department revisit. Associations between type of household and outcomes are expressed as adjusted hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals using living alone as the reference category.
13,442 patients with a median age of 79 years (interquartile range 72–86) were included; 56% were women, 12.2% of patients lived alone, 74.9% with relatives, 3.9% with a professional caregiver, and 9.1% in a nursing home. During the year following discharge, the mortality rate was 14.0%, the hospitalization rate 29.7%, and the emergency department revisit rate 59.3%. In the fully adjusted model, the risk of death was associated only with living in a nursing home (hazard ratio 1.366 (1.101–1.695)). On the other hand, the risk of hospitalization was lower in individuals living in nursing homes (hazard ratio 0.783 0.676–0.907) and at home with relatives (hazard ratio 0.897 0.810–0.992), while the risk of emergency department revisit was lower in individuals living in nursing homes (hazard ratio 0.826 0.742–0.920) or at home with caregivers (hazard ratio 0.856 0.750–0.976).
The type of household was modestly associated with the one-year prognosis of patients ≥65 years of age discharged after attendance at an emergency department. Living in a nursing home is associated with an increased risk of death but a decreased risk of rehospitalization or emergency department revisit, while living at home with relatives or professional caregivers is associated only with a decreased risk of hospitalization and emergency department revisit, respectively.
There is a lack of knowledge about the real incidence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in patients with COVID-19, their clinical characteristics, and their prognoses.
We investigated the incidence, ...clinical characteristics, risk factors, and outcomes of ACS in patients with COVID-19 in the emergency department.
We retrospectively reviewed all COVID-19 patients diagnosed with ACS in 62 Spanish emergency departments between March and April 2020 (the first wave of COVID-19). We formed 2 control groups: COVID-19 patients without ACS (control A) and non–COVID-19 patients with ACS (control B). Unadjusted comparisons between cases and control subjects were performed regarding 58 characteristics and outcomes.
We identified 110 patients with ACS in 74,814 patients with COVID-19 attending the ED (1.48% 95% confidence interval {CI} 1.21–1.78%). This incidence was lower than that observed in non–COVID-19 patients (3.64% 95% CI 3.54–3.74%; odds ratio OR 0.40 95% CI 0.33–0.49). The clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 associated with a higher risk of presenting ACS were: previous coronary artery disease, age ≥60 years, hypertension, chest pain, raised troponin, and hypoxemia. The need for hospitalization and admission to intensive care and in-hospital mortality were higher in cases than in control group A (adjusted OR aOR 6.36 95% CI 1.84–22.1, aOR 4.63 95% CI 1.88–11.4, and aOR 2.46 95% CI 1.15–5.25). When comparing cases with control group B, the aOR of admission to intensive care was 0.41 (95% CI 0.21–0.80), while the aOR for in-hospital mortality was 5.94 (95% CI 2.84–12.4).
The incidence of ACS in patients with COVID-19 attending the emergency department was low, around 1.48%, but could be increased in some circumstances. Patients with COVID-19 with ACS had a worse prognosis than control subjects with higher in-hospital mortality.
To assess the accuracy of plasma levels of soluble Triggering Receptor Expressed on Myeloid cells (sTREM)-1 to diagnose infection in critical patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome ...(SIRS).
We prospectively studied 114 patients with SIRS criteria. The patients’ plasma levels of sTREM-1 were measured within 24h of admission to the intensive care unit. The final diagnosis of infection was made independently by two investigators, who were blinded to the levels of sTREM-1.
The area under the ROC curve of sTREM-1 for the diagnosis of sepsis was 0.62 (95% confidence interval 95% CI 0.51–0.72). The diagnostic odds ratio of sTREM-1 after adjusting for the Infection Probability Score and procalcitonin plasma levels was 1.81 (95% CI 0.66–4.98; p=0.2508).
In critical patients admitted with SIRS, sTREM-1 has poor discriminative power to identify patients with infection, and sTREM-1 levels do not add diagnostic information to that provided by other routinely available clinical tests.
To describe the clinical characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) treated in hospital emergency departments (EDs) in Spain, and to assess associations between ...characteristics and outcomes.
Prospective, multicenter, nested-cohort study. Sixty-one EDs included a random sample of all patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 1 and April 30, 2020. Demographic and baseline health information, including concomitant conditions; clinical characteristics related to the ED visit and complementary test results; and treatments were recorded throughout the episode in the ED. We calculated crude and adjusted odds ratios for risk of in-hospital death and a composite outcome consisting of the following events: intensive care unit admission, orotracheal intubation or mechanical ventilation, or in-hospital death. The logistic regression models were constructed with 3 groups of independent variables: the demographic and baseline health characteristics, clinical characteristics and complementary test results related to the ED episode, and treatments.
The mean (SD) age of patients was 62 (18) years. Most had high- or low-grade fever, dry cough, dyspnea, and diarrhea. The most common concomitant conditions were cardiovascular diseases, followed by respiratory diseases and cancer. Baseline patient characteristics that showed a direct and independent association with worse outcome (death and the composite outcome) were age and obesity. Clinical variables directly associated with worse outcomes were impaired consciousness and pulmonary crackles; headache was inversely associated with worse outcomes. Complementary test findings that were directly associated with outcomes were bilateral lung infiltrates, lymphopenia, a high platelet count, a D-dimer concentration over 500 mg/dL, and a lactate-dehydrogenase concentration over 250 IU/L in blood.
This profile of the clinical characteristics and comorbidity of patients with COVID-19 treated in EDs helps us predict outcomes and identify cases at risk of exacerbation. The information can facilitate preventive measures and improve outcomes.
To describe the sociodemographic characteristics of and the health care resources used to treat patients aged 65 years or older who come to hospital emergency departments (EDs) in Spain, according to ...age groups.
We studied the phase-1 data for the EDEN cohort (Emergency Department and Elder Needs). Forty Spanish EDs collected data on all patients aged 65 years or older who were treated on the first 7 days in April 2019. We registered information on 6 sociodemographic and 5 function variables for all patients. For health resource use we used 6 diagnostic, 13 therapeutic, and 5 physical structural variables, for a total of 24 variables. Differences were analyzed according to age in blocks of 5 years.
A total of 18 374 patients with a median age of 78 years were included; 55% were women. Twenty-seven percent arrived by ambulance, 71% had not previously been seen by a physician, and 13% lived alone without assistance. Ten percent had a high level of functional dependence, and 14% had serious comorbidity. Resources used most often were blood analysis (in 60%) and radiology (59%), analgesics (25%), intravenous fluids (21%), antibiotics (14%), oxygen (13%), and bronchodilators (11%). Twenty-six percent were kept under observation in the ED, 26% were admitted to wards, and 2% were admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). The median stay in the ED was 3.5 hours, and the median hospital stay was 7 days. Sociodemographic characteristics changed according to age. Functional dependence worsened with age, and resource requirements increased in general. However, benzodiazepine use was unaffected, while the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and ICU admission decreased.
The functional dependence of older patients coming to EDs increases with age and is associated with a high level of health care resource use, which also increases with age. Planners should take into consideration the characteristics of the older patients and the proportion of the caseload they represent when arranging physical spaces and designing processes for a specific ED.
To analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Spanish emergency department (ED) care for patients aged 65 years or older during the first wave vs. a pre-pandemic period.
Retrospective ...cross-sectional study of a COVID-19 portion of the EDEN project (Emergency Department and Elder Needs). The EDEN-COVID cohort included all patients aged 65 years or more who were treated in 52 EDs on 7 consecutive days early in the pandemic. We analyzed care variables, discharge diagnoses, use of diagnostic and therapeutic resources, use of observation units, need for hospitalization, rehospitalization, and mortality. These data were compared with data for an EDEN cohort in the same age group recruited during a similar period the year before the pandemic.
The 52 participating hospital EDs attended 33 711 emergencies during the pandemic vs. 96 173 emergencies in the pre-COVID period, representing a 61.7% reduction during the pandemic. Patients aged 65 years or older accounted for 28.8% of the caseload during the COVID-19 period and 26.4% of the earlier cohort (P .001). The COVID-19 caseload included more men (51.0%). Comorbidity and polypharmacy were more prevalent in the pandemic cohort than in the earlier one (comorbidity, 92.6% vs. 91.6%; polypharmacy, 65.2% vs. 63.6%). More esturesources (analgesics, antibiotics, heparins, bronchodilators, and corticosteroids) were applied in the pandemic period, and common diagnoses were made less often. Observation wards were used more often (for 37.8% vs. 26.2% in the earlier period), and hospital admissions were more frequent (in 56.0% vs. 25.3% before the pandemic). Mortality was higher during the pandemic than in the earlier cohort either in ED (1.8% vs 0.5%) and during hospitalization (11.5 vs 2.9%).
The proportion of patients aged 65 years or older decreased in the participating Spanish EDs. However, more resources were required and the pattern of diagnoses changed. Observation ward stays were longer, and admissions and mortality increased over the numbers seen in the reference period.
•Several cardiovascular/hemostatic disturbances haves been reported in patients with COVID-19, but the real frequency and their potential association with the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-19 ...still remain to be defined.•We investigated the relative frequency of acute coronary syndrome, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, stroke and upper gastrointestinal bleeding in COVID patents attending emergency departments (EDs), before hospitalization and compared them with frequencies in the general ED population attending 50 Spanish EDs.•We found that the risk of pulmonary embolism is clearly increased in COVID patients, with an OR of 4.53 with respect to non-COVID patients (95% confidence interval 4.03- 5.10). Additionally, the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism was 2 fold more frequent among ED comers in 2020 compared to 2019, suggesting a SARS-CoV-2 role in such increment of cases.. The remaining entities studied were not found to be unequivocally increased in the present study and need further investigation.
There is a lack of knowledge about the real incidence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in patients with COVID-19, their clinical characteristics, and their prognoses.
We investigated the incidence, ...clinical characteristics, risk factors, and outcomes of ACS in patients with COVID-19 in the emergency department.
We retrospectively reviewed all COVID-19 patients diagnosed with ACS in 62 Spanish emergency departments between March and April 2020 (the first wave of COVID-19). We formed 2 control groups: COVID-19 patients without ACS (control A) and non-COVID-19 patients with ACS (control B). Unadjusted comparisons between cases and control subjects were performed regarding 58 characteristics and outcomes.
We identified 110 patients with ACS in 74,814 patients with COVID-19 attending the ED (1.48% 95% confidence interval {CI} 1.21-1.78%). This incidence was lower than that observed in non-COVID-19 patients (3.64% 95% CI 3.54-3.74%; odds ratio OR 0.40 95% CI 0.33-0.49). The clinical characteristics of patients with COVID-19 associated with a higher risk of presenting ACS were: previous coronary artery disease, age ≥60 years, hypertension, chest pain, raised troponin, and hypoxemia. The need for hospitalization and admission to intensive care and in-hospital mortality were higher in cases than in control group A (adjusted OR aOR 6.36 95% CI 1.84-22.1, aOR 4.63 95% CI 1.88-11.4, and aOR 2.46 95% CI 1.15-5.25). When comparing cases with control group B, the aOR of admission to intensive care was 0.41 (95% CI 0.21-0.80), while the aOR for in-hospital mortality was 5.94 (95% CI 2.84-12.4).
The incidence of ACS in patients with COVID-19 attending the emergency department was low, around 1.48%, but could be increased in some circumstances. Patients with COVID-19 with ACS had a worse prognosis than control subjects with higher in-hospital mortality.
PDF
