Clinical characteristics and outcome of COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic diseases

Alzahrani, Zeyad A.; Alghamdi, Khalid Abdullah; Almaqati, Ahmed Saeed

This study aimed to assess the baseline characteristics and clinical outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients with rheumatic diseases and identify the risk factors associated with severe COVID-19 pneumonia. This was a retrospective study in a tertiary care center conducted through the period between March 2020 and November 2020 and included all adult patients with rheumatic diseases who tested positive on the COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. We assessed the patients’ demographic data, history of rheumatic disease, COVID-19 symptoms and experimental treatment, if any, their disease course, and outcome. In all, 47 patients were included, and most were females. The commonest rheumatic diseases were rheumatoid arthritis (53.2%), followed by systemic lupus erythematosus (21.3%), and psoriatic arthritis (10.6%). Methotrexate and hydroxychloroquine were the most commonly used disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in 36.1% and 25.5%, respectively. Out of 47 patients, 48.9% required hospitalization with a median hospital stay of 7 days. Severe COVID-19 pneumonia, defined as clinical signs of pneumonia plus one of the following: respiratory rate > 30 bpm, severe respiratory distress, or oxygen saturation < 90% in room air was observed in 19.1% of the patients, and one patient died. We found that elderly patients with a mean age of 65.3 years were more likely to develop severe COVID-19 pneumonia and that was statistically significant. Our study showed that elderly patients with a mean age of 65 years and having rheumatic diseases had an increased risk of hospital admission and development of severe COVID-19 pneumonia.