Decreased serial scores of severe organ failure assessments are associated with survival in mechanically ventilated patients; the prospective Maastricht Intensive Care COVID cohort

Background: The majority of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection are admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for mechanical ventilation. The role of multi-organ failure during ICU admission as driver for outcome remains to be investigated yet.

Design and setting: Prospective cohort of mechanically ventilated critically ill with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Participants and methods: 94 participants of the MaastrICCht cohort (21% women) had a median length of stay of 16 days (maximum of 77). After division into survivors (n = 59) and non-survivors (n = 35), we analysed 1555 serial SOFA scores using linear mixed-effects models.

Results: Survivors improved one SOFA score point more per 5 days (95% CI: 4-8) than non-survivors. Adjustment for age, sex, and chronic lung, renal and liver disease, body-mass index, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular risk fac-tors, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score did not change this result. This association was stronger for women than men (P-interaction = 0.043).

Conclusions: The decrease in SOFA score associated with survival suggests multi-organ failure involvement dur -ing mechanical ventilation in patients with SARS-CoV-2. Surviving women appeared to improve faster than sur-viving men. Serial SOFA scores may unravel an unfavourable trajectory and guide decisions in mechanically ventilated patients with SARS-CoV-2.

(c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).