Obesity predisposes to the risk of higher mortality in young COVID-19 patients.

Abstract

Although emerging data demonstrated mortality of young COVID-19 patients, no data have reported the risk factors of mortality for these young patients, and whether obesity is a risk for young COVID-19 patients remains unknown. We conducted a retrospective study including 13 young patients who died of COVID-19 and 40 matched survivors. Logistic regression was employed to characterize the risk factors of mortality in young obese COVID-19 patients. Most of the young deceased COVID-19 patients were mild cases at the time of admission, but the disease progressed rapidly featured by a higher severity of patchy shadows (100.00% vs 48.70%; P = .006), pleural thickening (61.50% vs 12.80%; P = .012), and mild pericardial effusion (76.90% vs 0.00%; P < .001). Most importantly, the deceased patients manifested higher body mass index (odds ratio [OR] = 1.354; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.075-1.704; P = .010), inflammation-related index C-reactive protein (OR = 1.014; 95% CI = 1.003-1.025; P = .014), cardiac injury biomarker hs-cTnI (OR = 1.420; 95% CI = 1.112-1.814; P = .005), and increased coagulation activity biomarker D-dimer (OR = 418.7; P = .047), as compared with that of survivors. Our data support that obesity could be a risk factor associated with high mortality in young COVID-19 patients, whereas aggravated inflammatory response, enhanced cardiac injury, and increased coagulation activity are likely to be the mechanisms contributing to the high mortality.

• Authors: Fengqin Zhang, Ying Xiong, Yanqiu Wei, Yi Hu, Feng Wang, Gang Li, Kui Liu, Ronghui Du, Cong-Yi Wang, Wenzhen Zhu
• Journal: Journal of medical virology (J Med Virol) Vol. 92 Issue 11 Pg. 2536-2542 (11 2020) ISSN: 1096-9071 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 32437016 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
• Copyright: © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Topics

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Age Factors
• Body Mass Index
• COVID-19 (diagnostic imaging, mortality)
• China
• Disease Progression
• Disease Susceptibility
• Female
• Hospitalization (statistics & numerical data)
• Humans
• Inflammation (virology)
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Obesity (complications)
• Odds Ratio
• Prognosis
• Retrospective Studies
• Risk Factors
• Tomography, X-Ray Computed
• Young Adult