Association of diabetes and outcomes in patients with COVID-19: Propensity score-matched analyses from a French retrospective cohort

Background. - Our study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of patients with and without diabetes admitted to hospital with COVID-19. Methods. - This retrospective multicentre cohort study comprised 24 tertiary medical centres in France, and included 2851 patients (675 with diabetes) hospitalized for COVID-19 between 26 February and 20 April 2020. A propensity score-matching (PSM) method (1:1 matching including patients' characteristics, medical history, vital statistics and laboratory results) was used to compare patients with and without diabetes (n = 603 per group). The primary outcome was admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) and/or in-hospital death. Results. - After PSM, all baseline characteristics were well balanced between those with and without diabetes: mean age was 71.2 years; 61.8% were male; and mean BMI was 29 kg/m(2). A history of cardiovascular, chronic kidney and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases were found in 32.8%, 22.1% and 6.4% of participants, respectively. The risk of experiencing the primary outcome was similar in patients with or without diabetes [hazard ratio (HR): 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.95-1.41; P = 0.14], and was 1.29 (95% Cl: 0.97-1.69) for in-hospital death, 1.26 (95% CI: 0.9-1.72) for death with no transfer to an ICU and 1.14 (95% Cl: 0.88-1.47) with transfer to an ICU. Conclusion. - In this retrospective study cohort of patients hospitalized for COVID-19, diabetes was not significantly associated with a higher risk of severe outcomes after PSM. (C) 2020 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

Automated summary

The study found that diabetes was not significantly associated with severe outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.