Phenotypes of disease severity in a cohort of hospitalized COVID-19 patients: Results from the IMPACC study

BACKGROUND

Better understanding of the association between characteristics of patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and outcome is needed to further improve upon patient management.

METHODS

Immunophenotyping Assessment in a COVID-19 Cohort (IMPACC) is a prospective, observational study of 1164 patients from 20 hospitals across the United States. Disease severity was assessed using a 7-point ordinal scale based on degree of respiratory illness. Patients were prospectively surveyed for 1 year after discharge for post-acute sequalae of COVID-19 (PASC) through quarterly surveys. Demographics, comorbidities, radiographic findings, clinical laboratory values, SARS-CoV-2 PCR and serology were captured over a 28-day period. Multivariable logistic regression was performed.

FINDINGS

The median age was 59 years (interquartile range [IQR] 20); 711 (61%) were men; overall mortality was 14%, and 228 (20%) required invasive mechanical ventilation. Unsupervised clustering of ordinal score over time revealed distinct disease course trajectories. Risk factors associated with prolonged hospitalization or death by day 28 included age ≥ 65 years (odds ratio [OR], 2.01; 95% CI 1.28-3.17), Hispanic ethnicity (OR, 1.71; 95% CI 1.13-2.57), elevated baseline creatinine (OR 2.80; 95% CI 1.63- 4.80) or troponin (OR 1.89; 95% 1.03-3.47), baseline lymphopenia (OR 2.19; 95% CI 1.61-2.97), presence of infiltrate by chest imaging (OR 3.16; 95% CI 1.96-5.10), and high SARS-CoV2 viral load (OR 1.53; 95% CI 1.17-2.00). Fatal cases had the lowest ratio of SARS-CoV-2 antibody to viral load levels compared to other trajectories over time (p=0.001). 589 survivors (51%) completed at least one survey at follow-up with 305 (52%) having at least one symptom consistent with PASC, most commonly dyspnea (56% among symptomatic patients). Female sex was the only associated risk factor for PASC.

INTERPRETATION

Integration of PCR cycle threshold, and antibody values with demographics, comorbidities, and laboratory/radiographic findings identified risk factors for 28-day outcome severity, though only female sex was associated with PASC. Longitudinal clinical phenotyping offers important insights, and provides a framework for immunophenotyping for acute and long COVID-19.

FUNDING

NIH.

Metabolic pathway analysis web service (Pathway Hunter Tool at CUBIC)

MOTIVATION

Pathway Hunter Tool (PHT), is a fast, robust and user-friendly tool to analyse the shortest paths in metabolic pathways. The user can perform shortest path analysis for one or more organisms or can build virtual organisms (networks) using enzymes. Using PHT, the user can also calculate the average shortest path (Jungnickel, 2002 Graphs, Network and Algorithm. Springer-Verlag, Berlin), average alternate path and the top 10 hubs in the metabolic network. The comparative study of metabolic connectivity and observing the cross talk between metabolic pathways among various sequenced genomes is possible.

RESULTS

A new algorithm for finding the biochemically valid connectivity between metabolites in a metabolic network was developed and implemented. A predefined manual assignment of side metabolites (like ATP, ADP, water, CO(2) etc.) and main metabolites is not necessary as the new concept uses chemical structure information (global and local similarity) between metabolites for identification of the shortest path.

[Lotheissen-McVay repair of hernia. Late follow-up analysis after 1202 operations for inguinal and femoral hernias]

Of 1202 hernia repairs performed according to the modified Lotheissen-McVay technique 1020 (84.9%) were followed up. The frequency of hernia increases with increasing age. The total recurrence rate after an average follow-up of 9 years was 9.2% for primary hernias and 11.5% for recurrences. The recurrence rate depends on the follow-up time and on sex. For primary hernias the recurrence rate was 0.7% after 1 year, 5% after 5 years, 9.1% after 10 years and 11.5% after 15 years. After 1 year the recurrence rate was 0.6% for women and 0.8% for men; after 5 years the corresponding figures were 3.9% and 5.2% and after 10 years, 6.6% and 9.5%. The results after repair of recurrent hernias are not much worse than those obtained in the case of primary hernias. The recurrence rate depends on the surgeon's experience. We found a recurrence rate of 3.6% in 319 operations performed by our most experienced surgeon, as against 16.3% among those performed by inexperienced surgeons. Therefore, careful assistance is paramount for the inexperienced surgeon, because training is indispensable. The most frequent complications of primary operations were hematoma and seroma (4.4%), wound infections (1.7%), pulmonary embolism (0.9%), deep vein thrombosis (0.7%) and testicular atrophy (0.4%). The traditional Lotheissen-McVay technique for hernia repair still has a place in the surgical treatment of hernia. This technique can be used as the standard treatment for all kinds of inguinal or femoral hernias, without higher complication rates, and it yields especially good results in recurrent hernias.