The Effects of Smoking in Patients in the Intensive Care Unit During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to see the effects of smoking prevalence, the length of stay regarding the usage of cigarettes, and the effects on the mortality of COVID-19 in our Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Methods: This is a retrospective single-centered study that was done in the ICU on patients with COVID-19 between 16th of March and 16th of May in 2020. The demographic data, comorbidity status, the units they were accepted from, clinical symptoms, respiratory support, prevalence of smoking, length of stay in the ICU, and mortalities of the patients were recorded. There were two groups: Smoker and non-smoker. There were 1100 COVID-19 patients and 150 of these were treated in ICU unit. 95 patient's data were accessed. Statistical analyses were performed with the Scientific Package for the Social Science (version 21.0; SPSS Inc.). Results: There were 69.4% non-smoker and 35.8% smoker, and 5.3% of the smoker did smoke before (Table 1). The average age of the patients in smoker group was less than nonsmoker. The incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was higher in smokers (Table 2). The most common symptom was cough and it was 82% in nonsmoker group and 76.5% in smoker group (Table 3). In both groups, respiratory support was provided by IMV (Table 4). There was no relationship between two groups according to age (p=0.044) and gender of patients (p:0.062) (Table 2). The length of ICU stay was 7.6 days for smoking patients in the ICU and 9.3 days for non-users. While the mortality was 52.9% for smokers, it was 39.3% for non-smokers. No statistical correlation was found between smoking status, length of stay in ICU, and survival (Fig. 1). Smoking is blamed among the factors that cause this aggressive process, which can progress to respiratory failure and result in mortality in COVID-19 disease. Conclusion: Some studies also claim that smoking can be protective. There is still no clarity on this issue. It was concluded that smoking has no effect on the duration of ICU stay and mortality in patients treated in the ICU with respiratory failure due to COVID-19 pneumonia.

The Effect of Diabetes Mellitus on Mortality in Patients Hospitalized Intensive Care Unit in Covid-19 Pandemic.

Backgorund and aim: There are many studies on the effects of Diabetes Mellitus on the clinical course in COVID-19 patients. Factors that increase the risk of contracting COVID-19 disease and increase disease progression have been caused, and diabetes mellitus is one of them. We aimed to evaluate the incidence of Diabetes Mellitus in patients treated in the intensive care unit in respiratory failure due to COVID-19 pneumonia, and the effect of Diabetes Mellitus on the length of stay in intensive care and mortality. METHODS: Our study is a single-center retrospective study. The study includes patients hospitalized in our COVID intensive care unit between March 16, 2019, and May 16, 2020 Patients over 18 years of age with and without a history of Diabetes Mellitus were compared in 2 groups. Demographic data of the patients, length of stay in the intensive care unit, respiratory support methods, presence of other comorbid diseases, effects of Diabetes Mellitus to mortality in ICU were recorded. RESULTS: The information of 150 patients was obtained in the COVID-19 intensive care units of our hospital. Diabetes Mellitus was detected in 49 of the patients hospitalized in intensive care. 34.7% of these patients were female and 65.3% were male. There was no significant difference in survival in both groups (p = 0.942). The BMI of the patients with Diabetes Mellitus was 27.07 ± 2.55, significantly higher (p = 0.005). Intensive care stay periods were similar in both groups. The presence of hypertension was significantly higher in those with Diabetes Mellitus (p = 0.000). There was no statistically significant difference between respiratory support methods. CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes Mellitus did not affect the duration of stay in the intensive care unit and mortality in patients who were followed up and treated in the intensive care unit due to COVID-19 pneumonia.

Evaluation of the effect of clinical characteristics and intensive care treatment methods on the mortality of covid-19 patients aged 80 years and older.

BACKGROUND: Older adults have an increased risk of mortality from Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Despite the high number of publications on the topic of Covid-19 pandemic, few studies have focused on the intensive care treatments of Covid-19 patients aged 80 years and older. The goal of our study is to investigate the effect of the intensive care treatments on the mortality of Covid-19 patients aged 80 years and older based on their clinical features, laboratory findings and the intensive care treatments methods. METHODS: The data of 174 patients aged 80 years and older treated from Covid-19 in intensive care unit were assessed retrospectively. The patients were divided into two groups as survivor and non-survivor. The effects of age, gender, length of stay, comorbid diseases, laboratory values, thoracic computed tomography findings, having invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) and/or non-invasive mechanical ventilation (NIMV), hemodiafiltration (HDF), anti-cytokines and plasma therapy on mortality have been investigated. RESULTS: The mean age and mean values of CRP, PCT, Ferritin, LDH were statistically significantly high in the non-survivor group. The mortality rate of the patients who had IMV was also statistically significantly higher compared to patients who had HFNC and/or NIMV. Albumin level and the rate of treatment with HFNC and/or NIMV were statistically significantly low in non-survivor group compared to the Survivor group. CONCLUSION: ICU treatments may be beneficial for the Covid-19 patients aged 80 years and older. Increased age, high levels of CRP, PCT, ferritin, and having IMV are detected as poor outcome markers.