Risk and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic diseases compared with the general population: a systematic review and meta-analysis

AbstractPatients with rheumatic diseases are often more susceptible to different bacteria and viruses because of immune impairment, but it is not clear whether there is a higher risk of infection and a more serious course of disease for novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). We performed this systematic review and meta analysis to assess the risk and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic diseases compared with the general population. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus and Web of Science databases from January 1, 2020 to October 20, 2020 to determine epidemiological information related to patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19, including clear risk estimate or data that could be converted and extracted. We included 26 observational studies, totaling about 2000 patients with rheumatic diseases of whom were infected with COVID-19. Meta-analysis showed that the risk of COVID-19 infection in rheumatic patients was significantly higher than that in the general population (OR  = 1.53, 95% CI 1.24–1.88,P = 0.000). In terms of hospitalization and severe clinical outcomes associated with COVID-19, we found that rheumatic patients showed similar results to the reference population (hospitalization OR = 1.36, 95% CI 0.81–2.29,P = 0.247; admitted to ICU OR = 1.94, 95% CI 0.88–4.27,P = 0.098; death OR = 1.29, 95% CI 0.84–1.97,P = 0.248). The presence of comorbidities, hypertension, lung diseases were significantly associated with t...
Source: Rheumatology International - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: research