Characteristics and outcomes of an international cohort of 600 000 hospitalized patients with COVID-19

ISARIC Clinical Characterisation Group, Christiana Kartsonaki*, Christopher Green

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background
We describe demographic features, treatments and clinical outcomes in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) COVID-19 cohort, one of the world's largest international, standardized data sets concerning hospitalized patients.

Methods
The data set analysed includes COVID-19 patients hospitalized between January 2020 and January 2022 in 52 countries. We investigated how symptoms on admission, co-morbidities, risk factors and treatments varied by age, sex and other characteristics. We used Cox regression models to investigate associations between demographics, symptoms, co-morbidities and other factors with risk of death, admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV).

Results
Data were available for 689 572 patients with laboratory-confirmed (91.1%) or clinically diagnosed (8.9%) SARS-CoV-2 infection from 52 countries. Age [adjusted hazard ratio per 10 years 1.49 (95% CI 1.48, 1.49)] and male sex [1.23 (1.21, 1.24)] were associated with a higher risk of death. Rates of admission to an ICU and use of IMV increased with age up to age 60 years then dropped. Symptoms, co-morbidities and treatments varied by age and had varied associations with clinical outcomes. The case-fatality ratio varied by country partly due to differences in the clinical characteristics of recruited patients and was on average 21.5%.

Conclusions
Age was the strongest determinant of risk of death, with a ∼30-fold difference between the oldest and youngest groups; each of the co-morbidities included was associated with up to an almost 2-fold increase in risk. Smoking and obesity were also associated with a higher risk of death. The size of our international database and the standardized data collection method make this study a comprehensive international description of COVID-19 clinical features. Our findings may inform strategies that involve prioritization of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who have a higher risk of death.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)355–376
JournalInternational Journal of Epidemiology
Volume52
Issue number2
Early online date28 Feb 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2023

Bibliographical note

This work was made possible by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; Wellcome (215091/Z/18/Z, 205228/Z/16/Z, 220757/Z/20/Z); Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1209135); UK Medical Research Council Clinical Research Training Fellowship (MR/V001671/1); the philanthropic support of the donors to the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 Research Response Fund; CIHR Coronavirus Rapid Research Funding Opportunity (OV2170359) and the co-ordination in Canada by Sunnybrook Research Institute; endorsement of the Irish Critical Care—Clinical Trials Group, co-ordination in Ireland by the Irish Critical Care—Clinical Trials Network at University College Dublin and funding by the Health Research Board of Ireland (CTN-2014–12); the Rapid European COVID-19 Emergency Response research (RECOVER) (H2020 project 101003589) and European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases (ECRAID) (965313); the COVID clinical management team, AIIMS, Rishikesh, India; the COVID-19 Clinical Management team, Manipal Hospital Whitefield, Bengaluru, India; Cambridge NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; the dedication and hard work of the Groote Schuur Hospital Covid ICU Team; support by the Groote Schuur nursing and University of Cape Town registrar bodies co-ordinated by the Division of Critical Care at the University of Cape Town; the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford; the dedication and hard work of the Norwegian SARS-CoV-2 study team; the Research Council of Norway (grant no. 312780) and a philanthropic donation from Vivaldi Invest A/S owned by Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner; Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; the Comprehensive Local Research Networks of which PJMO is an NIHR Senior Investigator (NIHR201385); Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under Grant Agreement No. 115523 COMBACTE, resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007– 2013) and EFPIA companies, in-kind contribution; the French COVID cohort (NCT04262921) is sponsored by INSERM and is funded by the REACTing (REsearch & ACtion emergING infectious diseases) consortium and by a grant of the French Ministry of Health (PHRC n 20–0424); Stiftungsfonds zur Förderung der Bekämpfung der Tuberkulose und anderer Lungenkrankheiten of the City of Vienna (project no. APCOV22BGM); Italian Ministry of Health ‘Fondi Ricerca corrente–L1P6’ to IRCCS Ospedale Sacro Cuore–Don Calabria; Australian Department of Health grant (3273191); Gender Equity Strategic Fund at University of Queensland, Artificial Intelligence for Pandemics (A14PAN) at University of Queensland, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS, CE170100009), the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, Australia; grants from Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Ministerio de Ciencia, Spain; Brazil, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (scholarship no. 303953/2018–7); the Firland Foundation, Shoreline, Washington, USA; a grant from foundation Bevordering Onderzoek Franciscus; the South Eastern Norway Health Authority and the Research Council of Norway; and preparedness work conducted by the Short PeRiod IncideNce sTudy of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection. Data and Material provision was supported by grants from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR; award CO-CIN-01), the Medical Research Council (MRC; grant MC_PC_19059) and by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections at University of Liverpool in partnership with PHE (award no. 200907), NIHR HPRU in Respiratory Infections at Imperial College London with PHE (award no. 200927), Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (grant no. C18616/A25153), NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Imperial College London (award no. IS-BRC-1215–20013) and NIHR Clinical Research Network providing infrastructure support.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Characteristics and outcomes of an international cohort of 600 000 hospitalized patients with COVID-19'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this