Hypertension and its severity or mortality in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): a pooled analysis.

Lippi, Giuseppe; Wong, Johnny; Henry, Brandon Michael

INTRODUCTION As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, identification of clinical predictors of severe or fatal disease are necessary to enable risk stratification and optimize allocation of limited resources. Hypertension has been widely reported to be associated with increase disease severity, however, other studies have reported different findings. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the association of hypertension and severe and fatal COVID-19. PATIENTS AND METHODS Scopus, Medline, and Web of Science was performed to identify studies reporting the rate of hypertension in COVID-19 patients with severe or non-severe disease or among survivors and non-survivors. The obtained data was pooled into a meta-analysis to calculate odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). RESULTS Hypertension was associated with a nearly 2.5-fold significantly increased risk of severe COVID-19 disease (OR: 2.49 [95%CI: 1.98-3.12] I2=24%), as well as with a similarly significant higher risk of mortality (OR: 2.42 [95%CI: 1.51-3.90] I2=0%). In meta-regression, a significant correlation was observed with an increase in mean age of patients with severe COVID-19 associated with increased log odds of hypertension and severity (p=0.03). CONCLUSIONS The results of this pooled analysis of the current scientific literature would suggest that hypertension may be associated with an up to 2.5-fold higher risk of severe and fatal COVID-19, especially among older individuals.