Study Shows 90% of COVID-19 Patients in Ventilators Do not Survive

(Photo : REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah -/File Photo)
FILE PHOTO: Nurses receive training on using ventilators recently provided by the World Health Organization at the intensive care ward of a hospital allocated for coronavirus patients in preparation for any possible spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Sanaa, Yemen April 8, 2020. Picture taken April 8, 2020.

A giant study in New York City found an extraordinarily high 88% death rate among COVID-19 patient who were put on a mechanical ventilator.

Issued in the Journal of the America Medical Association, this research is one of the largest reviews published to date of COVID-19 patients admitted in the US.

In the new study, data were gathered from 5,700 patients who were admitted from March 1 and April 4 to Northwell Health. This is the largest health system in New York, with 12 hospitals in Long Island and Westchester County. Reportedly, 2634 of those patients were discharged or died by the end of the study, and 320 patients with a recorded outcome were placed on mechanical devices to help them breathe. About 9 of the 10 ventilated patients died.

But the age range is a factor. According to the report, about 76% of the patients who were ventilated between the ages of 18 and 65 died, and 97% of ventilated patients over the age of 65% died.

Researchers said that 21% of the 2,634 patients, ventilated or not, died. But among the 12% of those critically ill patients who needed to be ventilated to breathe, the death rate boomed to 88%. According to the results, men had a higher mortality rate than women.

As stated by the authors, the findings of high mortality rates among patients who were put on mechanical ventilators are similar to smaller case series reports of critically ill patients in the US.

Ventilators are one of the go-to options for ICUs and critical care doctors in working with severe cases of COVID-19 since there are still no proven drugs for the disease. But there are reports that few cases of patients who get on the machines are able to get off. As a result, doctors are trying to find methods for keeping the COVID-19 patients off them when possible.

The authors wrote that the majority, or 3066, of the patient were still admitted when the study ended, which could have biased the findings.

Northwell Health researchers who conducted the study said they were aware of the debate over when to utilize ventilators for COVID-19 patients, but commented that the observational nature of the study made it impossible to make any conclusion about how best to use mechanical ventilators to coronavirus patients.

Among the patients who were hospitalized, the researchers found that the most common underlying conditions were hypertension (around 56.6%), obesity (around 41.7%), and diabetes (around 33.8%).

Karina Davidson, senior vice president for research and professor at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, said they are only reporting observations in the study and they cannot say that the survival rate of the patients would have been different if the mechanical ventilators had been withheld from them.

She added that the wretched statistics do not imply that the mechanical devices caused harm, rather patients who were supported with mechanical ventilators typically have more severe disease and are more likely to die and that mechanical ventilators are not dangerous, and are lifesaving machines in many cases.