Clinical, laboratory, and radiologic findings associated with mortality in COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Although there has been a surge in reports on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the clinical signs and findings associated with fatal outcomes have rarely been studied. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the clinical, laboratory, and radiologic features associated with mortality in COVID-19. A comprehensive search was performed using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and other databases including government sources, for articles and reports published until May 1, 2020. We extracted the number of events (mortality and non-mortality) from case series and case-control and cross-sectional studies. Hazard ratios (HR) of each finding were extracted from studies with time-to-outcome analysis. In total, 23 studies met the inclusion criteria. Of them, 18 studies were case-control, cross-sectional, and case series study. Whereas, only 5 studies included time-to-outcome analysis. Male sex, age over 80 years, dyspnea, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, increased troponin I level, acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute kidney injury, and need of invasive mechanical ventilation were significantly associated with mortality. The identification of patients at higher risk of mortality has an utmost importance to achieve better treatment outcomes. The findings from our study may aid the prioritization in times of severe shortages of medical resources. Further studies analyzing diverse demographic and geographic populations are needed to generalize the findings from this study.</jats:p>