Estimation of biochemical factors affecting survival in intensive care COVID-19 patients undergoing chest CT scoring: A retrospective cross-sectional study

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly spreading deadly respiratory disease that emerged in the city of Wuhan in December 2019. As a result of its rapid and widespread transmission, the WHO declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 and studies evaluating mortality and prognosis in COVID-19 gained importance. The aim of this study was to determine the factors affecting the survival of COVID-19 patients followed up in a tertiary intensive care unit (ICU) and undergoing chest computed tomography (CT) scoring. This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted with the approval of Usak University Medical Faculty Ethics Committee between July and September 2020. It included 187 symptomatic patients (67 females, 120 males) with suspected COVID-19 who underwent chest CT scans in the ICU. Demographics, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE II), chest CT scores, COVID-19 real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) results, and laboratory parameters were recorded. SPSS 15.0 for Windows was used for the data analysis. The ages of the patients ranged from 18 to 94 and the mean age was 68.0 +/- 13.9 years. The COVID-19 RT PCR test was positive in 86 (46.0%) patients and 110 patients (58.8%) died during the follow-up. ICU stay (P = .024) and total invasive mechanical ventilation time (P < .001) were longer and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) was higher (P < .001) in the nonsurvivors. Patients with an APACHE II score of 23 and above had a 1.12-fold higher mortality rate (95% CI 0.061-0.263). There was no significant difference in total chest CT score between the survivors and nonsurvivors (P = .210). Chest CT score was not significantly associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients. Our idea that COVID-19 will cause greater mortality in patients with severe chest CT findings has changed. More studies on COVID-19 are needed to reveal the markers that affect prognosis and mortality in this period when new variants are affecting the world.