Mortality Data in Mechanically Ventilated COVID-19 patients admitted to ICU: A Retrospective Study in Brooklyn

Background: High mortality rates are predominant even in COVID-19 patients requiring minimal supportive therapy, with a short-coming of data on COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation.Objectives/Design: We performed a single-center, retrospective, cohort study at a tertiary care, community-based teaching hospital with patient who required invasive mechanical ventilatory support and were COVID-19 positive. All patients were treated according to the ARDSnet protocol. The primary outcome was overall mortality, and secondary outcome was successful extubation.Results: A total of 72 COVID-19 positive intubated patients were included. Twenty-six (66.6%) patients died within the first 15 days of hospital admission; thirty-eight (52.7%) died within 28 days, and thirty-nine (54.2%) died within 29 days. A total of 22 patients (30.5%) were successfully extubated. 15 patients (20.8%) who required reintubation or could not be extubated further underwent tracheostomy.Conclusions: Mortality of critically ill COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilatory support is high, our observed mortality rate (54.2%) was significantly lower than currently published reports. We believe our rate to be a consequence of early intubation in conjunction with adherence to ARDSnet protocol. We also observed patients with hyperlipidemia, higher CRP, renal failure, or those requiring vasopressor use had worse outcomes.