Influence of diabetes mellitus on the severity and fatality of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection

Wu, Jing; Zhang, Jingqi; Sun, Xiaohua; Wang, Lijuan; Xu, Yunfang; Zhang, Yuanyuan; Liu, Xingxiang; Dong, Chen

AIMS: Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common comorbidities in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influences of diabetes mellitus on the severity and fatality of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records of 66 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients were collected and classified into non‐severe (mild/moderate cases) and severe (severe/critical cases) groups, respectively. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the risk of severe COVID‐19 (severe/critical infection). In addition, a meta‐analysis including published studies reported the impacts of diabetes mellitus on severity and fatality of COVID‐19, and our current study was conducted using fixed‐effects models. RESULTS: There were 22 diabetic and 44 non‐diabetic cases among the 66 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients. As the results shown, seven cases (31.82%) were diagnosed as severe COVID‐19 in diabetic patients, which was significantly higher than that in non‐diabetic group (4/44, 9.09%, P = 0.033). After adjustment for age and gender, the results showed that diabetes mellitus was significantly associated with COVID‐19 severity (OR: 5.29, 95% CI: 1.07–26.02). A meta‐analysis further confirmed the positive association between diabetes mellitus and COVID‐19 severity (pooled OR = 2.58, 95% CI: 1.93–3.45). Moreover, the diabetic patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 showed to have 2.95‐fold higher risk of fatality compared to those patients without diabetes mellitus (95% CI: 1.93–4.53). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide new evidences that diabetes mellitus is associated with a higher risk of severity and fatality of COVID‐19. Therefore, intensive monitoring and antidiabetic therapy should be considered in diabetic patients with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.