Pneumothorax in Tertiary Intensive Care With COVID-19 is Associated With Increased Mortality

Abstract

Background: To examine the laboratory findings with clinical characteristics and treatments of patients who were hospitalized in a tertiary intensive care unit with the diagnosis of COVID-19 and developed pneumothorax and to determine epidemiology and risks of pneumothorax.Methods: The study was conducted by retrospectively examining the electronic records of 681 COVID-19 patients who were followed up between 1 April 2020 and 1 January 2021 in 3 tertiary care units (each was 24 beds). Patients demographic and clinical characteristics, laboratory findings, mechanical ventilator parameters and chest imaging were collected retrospectively,.Results: Pneumothorax in 22 (3.2%) of 681 with COVID-19 patients were detected and ARDS in 481 (70.6). All the study patients met ARDS diagnostic criterias. Mortality rates were 43.4% (296/681) in all patients, 52.8% (254/481) in patients with ARDS, and 86.3% (19/22) in patients with pneumothorax. Pneumothorax occurred in the patients within a mean of 17.4 ± 4.8 days. The computed tomographies of patients were observed common ground-glass opacities, heterogenic distribution with patch infiltrates, alveolar exudates, interstitial thickening in the 1st week of their follow-up. Conclusion: We observed that pneumothorax significantly increased mortality in COVID-19 patients with ARDS. We believe that understanding and preventing the characteristics of pneumothorax will make an important contribution to mortality reduction.