Risk Factors for Radiological Progression Within Admissive One Week in the Hospitalized COVID-19 Omicron Variant-Infected Patients

Feng-Feng Zhu; Bin-Bin Gu; Yu-Jia Jin; Lin Yao; Lin Zhou; Di Zou; Jian Ding; Teng Zhou; Xing-Hua Shen; Cheng Chen

doi:10.2147/IDR.S388696

Risk Factors for Radiological Progression Within Admissive One Week in the Hospitalized COVID-19 Omicron Variant-Infected Patients

Infect Drug Resist. 2022 Dec 6:15:7127-7137. doi: 10.2147/IDR.S388696. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Feng-Feng Zhu^#¹, Bin-Bin Gu^#¹, Yu-Jia Jin^#², Lin Yao³, Lin Zhou³, Di Zou¹, Jian Ding¹, Teng Zhou¹, Xing-Hua Shen¹, Cheng Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Intensive Care Unit, The Fifth People's Hospital of Suzhou, The Affiliated Infectious Disease Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215000, People's Republic of China.
² Department of Respiratory and Critical Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215000, People's Republic of China.
³ Department of Pulmonary, The Fifth People's Hospital of Suzhou, The Affiliated Infectious Disease Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, 215000, People's Republic of China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: Recently, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant was identified as responsible for a novel wave of COVID-19 worldwide. We perform a retrospective study to identify potential risk factors contributing to radiological progression in the COVID-19 patients due to the Omicron variant infection. These findings would provide guiding information for making clinical decisions that could improve the Omicron infection prognosis and reduce disease-related death.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study from a single center in China. According to the radiological change within admissive one week, enrolled cases were divided into two groups: the progressive (1w-PD) and the stable or improved disease (1w-non-PD). Separate analyses were performed on patients stratified into subgroups using the Mann-Whitney U-test, the Fisher exact test, or the Chi-squared test and a multivariable logistic regression analysis.

Results: Both the 1w-non-PD and 1w-PD cohorts displayed comparable asymptomatic infection, have similar underlying disease, impairment in respiratory function, coagulation dysfunction, tissue injury, SARS-CoV-2 viral load, and disease severity. However, the 1w-PD cohort was more inclined to cluster in populations presented with age between 41 and 65, higher CURB-65 scores, undetectable SARS-CoV-2 IgG, and lung affection. Based on the multiple logistic regression analysis, complicated bilateral and ground-glass opacities (GGOs) like pneumonia at admission were independent risk factors to radiological progression within admissive one week.

Conclusion: This study provided preliminary data regarding disease progression in Omicron-infected patients that indicated the development of pneumonia in the context of Omicron infection was worthy of potential risk factors.

Keywords: COVID-19; Omicron; pneumonia; radiology; risk.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Technology Research and Development Funding of Suzhou City SKY2021034 (to CC), the Science and Technology Project of Suzhou City Health Bureau LCZX201918 (to XHS), the Key Project of Health Care Commission of Jiangsu Province ZD2022041 (to XHS) and the Youth Science and Technology Project of Suzhou City KJXW2022049 (to BBG). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.