The relationship of COVID-19 severity with cardiovascular disease and its traditional risk factors: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Kunihiro Matsushita; Ning Ding; Minghao Kou; Xiao Hu; Mengkun Chen; Yumin Gao; Yasuyuki Honda; David Dowdy; Yejin Mok; Junichi Ishigami; Lawrence J Appel

The case fatality rate in those three databases exceeded 1% around age of 50-55 years and 10% above 80-85 years (above 70 years in Italy). Only two studies reported the relative risk by age in both unadjusted and multivariable models; both studies observed that the effect size of age was not materially changed after adjustment for comorbidities. 12, 25 Most studies showed a higher risk of severe COVID-19 in men than in women, with a pooled crude relative risk estimate of severe COVID-19 between men and women of 1.70 (95% CI 1.52-1.89) (Figure 2A ). Meta-regression demonstrated consistent results regardless of differences in mean or median age between those with vs. without severe COVID-19 (Web Figure 1) . A funnel plot did not indicate major publication bias (Web Figure 2A) .