COVID pneumonia in patients admitted to the Department of Pneumology, Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and University Hospital in Motol during the first and fourth pandemic waves
Abstract
In the last two years, COVID pneumonia has frequently been dealt with by both outpatient and inpatient pul-monology centers. To describe the actual situation, we conducted a retrospective study including 200 patients admitted to the Department of Pneumology, Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and University Hospital in Motol during the first (autumn 2020) and fourth (autumn 2021) waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of those, 25 % of patients died, significantly more in the first wave (33 %) than in the fourth wave (17 %). The mean age of the deceased was 76 years, as compared with 67 years in the entire sample.
The risk factor for admissions was, besides older age, a higher number of comorbidities, with 38 % of patients being obese. A negative prognostic factor was high C-reactive protein.
There were fewer deaths among patients treated with remdesivir (18 % vs. 30 %) and those with a body mass index over 31 (17 % vs. 30 %). Two thirds of patients died of COVID-19; one third died with the disease.
Vaccination was beneficial for patients in the fourth wave, with significantly fewer of them dying, staying in intensive care units and requiring mechanical ventilation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. COVID pneumonia is a severe, life-threatening disease whose course was positively influenced by vaccination, treatment and herd immunity through previous infection.