1. Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;2. Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;3. Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Comprehensive Transplant Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;4. Comprehensive Transplant Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Abstract:
Immunosuppression and comorbidities might place solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients at higher risk from COVID-19, as suggested by recent case series. We compared 45 SOT vs. 2427 non-SOT patients who were admitted with COVID-19 to our health-care system (March 1, 2020 - August 21, 2020), evaluating hospital length-of-stay and inpatient mortality using competing-risks regression. We compared trajectories of WHO COVID-19 severity scale using mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression, adjusting for severity score at admission. SOT and non-SOT patients had comparable age, sex, and race, but SOT recipients were more likely to have diabetes (60% vs. 34%, p < .001), hypertension (69% vs. 44%, p = .001), HIV (7% vs. 1.4%, p = .024), and peripheral vascular disorders (19% vs. 8%, p = .018). There were no statistically significant differences between SOT and non-SOT in maximum illness severity score (p = .13), length-of-stay (sHR: 0.91.11.4, p = .5), or mortality (sHR: 0.10.41.6, p = .19), although the severity score on admission was slightly lower for SOT (median IQR] 3 3, 4]) than for non-SOT (median IQR] 4 3–4]) (p = .042) Despite a higher risk profile, SOT recipients had a faster decline in disease severity over time (OR = 0.760.810.86, p < .001) compared with non-SOT patients. These findings have implications for transplant decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic, and insights about the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on immunosuppressed patients.
