Abstract
RationaleNovel Coronavirus-19(CoV-19) emerged in late 2019, leading to a global pandemic with over 1.5 million deaths worldwide and over 300,000 in the United States as of December 2020. Early data from China and the United States showed an increase risk in mortality in those individuals with comorbidities including chronic lung disease. Given the increase prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) worldwide there was concern of increase mortality in this vulnerable population. We describe the Northwestern Medicine (NM) Hospital system experience with individuals with COPD. MethodsPatient data was obtained via the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse (NMEDW), which is obtained via ten hospitals in the greater Chicagoland area that supply daily data to the NMEDW. Individuals who had a hospital encounter were identified with an ICD-10 coding for CoV-19 via the NM system between March 1, 2020 and July 16, 2020. Individuals would also be identified to have COPD via ICD-9 and ICD-10 coding. A simple chi-square analysis was done between characteristics using RStudio. ResultsA total of 5,585 individuals, with a CoV-19 diagnosis, were identified, of which 4,723 had a hospital encounter. Of those, a total of 296 patients were identified to have a COPD diagnosis. Of 4,427 without COPD, 53.1% were female, 17.9% Black, 38.2% Hispanic, 5.3% were current smokers, 47.3% required hospitalization, 13.9% required ICU admission, 8.1% required mechanical ventilation, and had a mortality rate of 3.8%. Of 296 patients with a COPD, 52.0% were female, 23.6% were black, 9.1% were Hispanic, 11.8% were current smokers, 84.1% required hospitalization, 31.8% required ICU admission, 19.6% required mechanical ventilation, and had a mortality rate of 14.2%. Table 1 below shows full characteristics of patients with CoV-19 diagnosis. ConclusionsInitial data of disease severity due to CoV-19 brought concerns about patients with COPD diagnosis and their increased risk of morbidity and mortality. We showcase NM system experience with individuals with COPD, that highlight higher rates of hospitalization, ICU stay, mechanical ventilation, investigational use of medication, and mortality. Given the discrepancy in age between groups, we acknowledge that it likely is a potential confounding variable for our outcomes. Further research into the severity of COPD and the outcomes of individuals with CoV-19 is required. .