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Findings of a new study suggest that one in five Covid-19 patients with diabetes as a co-morbidity likely dies after getting infected.
The French CORONADO study, published in the government journal Clinical Trials, had begun during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020.
The study’s preliminary investigation had found that 10.6 per cent of patients with type 2 diabetes and Covid-19 and 5.6 per cent of those with type 1 diabetes and Covid-19 died within a week after hospitalisation.
The researchers carried out further investigation, which was published in the journal Diabetologia, by involving 2796 Covid-19 patients with diabetes who were hospitalised at 68 institutions across France between March 10 and April 10, 2020, and followed for 28 days.
The researchers observed that the primary outcome was tracheal intubation and/or death.
“We put together all the relevant medical information: history, usual treatment, clinical and biological presentation, and hospital prognosis,” says lead author Matthieu Wargny, MD, L’Institut du Thorax, INSERM, CNRS, University Hospital of Nantes, France.
“We were also interested in positive outcomes, like returning home or to a care home, transfer to another hospital, or follow-up care,” Wargny noted.
The study revealed that after 28 days, 577 patients (20.6 per cent) had died and 1404 (50.2 per cent) had been discharged. The median duration of hospital stay was 9 days.
Wargny added: “We also found that 12.2 per cent of patients were still in hospital and 16.9% had been transferred.”
The researchers further noted that this may vary according to the prevalence of the virus in the current situation.
He added that the researchers “were able to identify the principal prognostic risk factors, both negative and positive.”
Among the risk factors that led to poorer outcomes, advancing age was the most important. This was followed by a history of microvascular complications, particularly kidney and eye damage, dyspnea on admission, and inflammatory markers (white blood cell count, raised C-reactive protein, and elevated aspartate transaminase).
Among the positive risk factors, researchers identified routine treatment with metformin and a history of Covid-19 symptoms before hospitalisation.
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