Obesity increases the risk of severe COVID-19 infection, which can cause mechanical ventilation and death in intensive care units. Our aim is to draw attention to obesity, which is an important public health problem, from the COVID-19 window by emphasizing the excess of morbid obese cases in our center, gender distribution and disease course.
Age, gender, body mass index (BMI) and ventilator parameters of all patients in our 57-bed COVID-19 intensive care unit were recorded on 30.11.2020. Patients with vasopressor need or acute renal failure (ARF) were accepted as Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS).We evaluated our patients with a BMI of 40 and above as the morbid obesity group (Group 1). We compared our one-day data with patients with a BMI below 40 (Group 2).
Results
14 of our 57 patients had BMI over 40 and 9 were women. There was no significant difference between groups 1 and 2 in terms of ventilation needs and parameters, severity of respiratory failure and age distribution. However, presence of MODS and ARF were significantly higher in group 1. All our data are summarized in Table 1.
Discussion
In important studies conducted during the pandemic, it has been emphasized that female gender needs less intensive care admission, and have less disease severity than male patients (2).
A report on 4103 patients showed that the most important clinical features leading to hospitalization were being over 65 years of age and obesity, and more than hypertension, diabetes or cardiovascular disease (3). The prevalence of obesity is higher in our country, especially among women, as in the whole world (4).
Conclusion
Although the effects of COVID-19 on obesity patients have been described in many studies, the prevalence and accompanying MODS, especially in female patients, can contribute to clinicians in predicting intensive care mortality and the course of the disease.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Morbid Obesity, COVID-19, Intensive care units, MODS
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