São Paulo Medical Journal (Dec 2020)

COVID-19 and patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases undergoing pharmacological treatments: a rapid living systematic review

  • Aline Pereira da Rocha,
  • Álvaro Nagib Atallah,
  • Ana Carolina Pereira Nunes Pinto,
  • César Ramos Rocha-Filho,
  • Keilla Martins Milby,
  • Vinicius Tassoni Civile,
  • Nelson Carvas Junior,
  • Felipe Sebastião de Assis Reis,
  • Laura Jantsch Ferla,
  • Gabriel Sodré Ramalho,
  • Giulia Fernandes Moça Trevisani,
  • Maria Eduarda dos Santos Puga,
  • Virgínia Fernandes Moça Trevisani

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-3180.2020.0421.r2.10092020
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 138, no. 6
pp. 515 – 520

Abstract

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ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID) are at increased risk of infection. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether patients undergoing pharmacological treatment for IMID present higher risk of worse outcomes when diagnosed with COVID-19. DESIGN AND SETTING: Rapid systematic review conducted in the medical school of the Federal University of São Paulo (SP), Brazil. METHODS: We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, SCOPUS, Web of Science, L·OVE, ClinicalTrials.gov and WHO-ICTRP for studies evaluating patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who were undergoing pharmacological treatment for IMID. Two authors selected studies, extracted data and assessed risk of bias and certainty of evidence, following the Cochrane recommendations. RESULTS: We identified 1,498 references, from which one cohort study was included. This compared patients with and without rheumatic diseases (RD) who all had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Those with RD seemed to have higher chances of hospitalization and mortality, but no statistical difference was detected between the groups: hospitalization: odds ratio (OR) 1.17; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.6 to 2.29; mortality rate: OR 1.53; 95% CI 0.33 to 7.11 (very low certainty of evidence). Patients with RD were three times more likely to require admission to intensive care units (ICUs), with invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), than those without RD: OR 3.72; 95% CI 1.35 to 10.26 (for both outcomes; very low certainty of evidence). CONCLUSION: Patients undergoing pharmacological treatment for IMID seem to present higher chances of requiring admission to ICUs, with IMV. Additional high-quality studies are needed to analyze the effects of different treatments for IMID.

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