The impact of objective nutritional indexes on in-hospital mortality in Covid-19 infection

Yildirim, A.; Abacioglu, O. O.; Belibagli, M. C.

Purpose: The effect of nutritional status on in-hospital mortality in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is unclear. We aimed to analyze the relationship between nutritional status score (CONUT) and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) and in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 infection. Materials and Methods: We included 187 patients with COVID-19 between 11 March-10 May 2020. The CONUT and PNI scores were calculated using the laboratory results. The groups were divided into survival and in-hospital mortality Results: The mean age of the patients was 66.2 +/- 15.8 years (55.3% male). The mortality rate was 20.8% (n=39). The median PNI scores was significantly lower and the median CONUT score was significantly higher in the mortality group. Multivariate regression analysis showed that PNI and CONUT were independent predictors of mortality. ROC curve analyses showed that CONUT had a better performance than PNI to predict in-hospital mortality. Conclusion: In COVID-19 patients, CONUT and PNI scores were independently associated with in-hospital mortality, with CONUT presenting a better performance than PNI.