D’Arminio Monforte A, Tavelli A, Bai F, Tomasoni D, Falcinella C, Castoldi R, Barbanotti D, Mulè G, Allegrini M, Suardi E, Tesoro D, Tagliaferri G, Mondatore D, Augello M, Cona A, Beringheli T, Gemignani N, Sala M, Varisco B, Molà F, Pettenuzzo S, Biasioli L, Copes A, Gazzola L, Viganò O, Tincati C, De Bona A, Bini T, Marchetti G. Declining Mortality Rate of Hospitalised Patients in the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Epidemics in Italy: Risk Factors and the Age-Specific Patterns.
Life (Basel) 2021;
11:979. [PMID:
34575128 PMCID:
PMC8464683 DOI:
10.3390/life11090979]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2021] [Revised: 09/10/2021] [Accepted: 09/13/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Mortality rate from COVID-19 in Italy is among the world's highest. We aimed to ascertain whether there was any reduction of in-hospital mortality in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 in the second-wave period (October 2020-January 2021) compared to the first one (February-May 2020); further, we verified whether there were clusters of hospitalised patients who particularly benefitted from reduced mortality rate.
METHODS
Data collected related to in-patients' demographics, clinical, laboratory, therapies and outcome. Primary end-point was time to in-hospital death. Factors associated were evaluated by uni- and multivariable analyses. A flow diagram was created to determine the rate of in-hospital death according to individual and disease characteristics.
RESULTS
A total of 1561 patients were included. The 14-day cumulative incidence of in-hospital death by competing risk regression was of 24.8% (95% CI: 21.3-28.5) and 15.9% (95% CI: 13.7-18.2) in the first and second wave. We observed that the highest relative reduction of death from first to second wave (more than 47%) occurred mainly in the clusters of patients younger than 70 years.
CONCLUSIONS
Progress in care and supporting therapies did affect population over 70 years to a lesser extent. Preventive and vaccination campaigns should focus on individuals whose risk of death from COVID-19 remains high.
Collapse