Clinical Characteristics of Invasively Ventilated Covid-19 Patients: An Overview of Clinical Experience in Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital, Rīga, Latvia

Abstract This retrospective single-centre study was conducted in an intensive care unit (ICU) in Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital (Rīga, Latvia) between 1 October 2020 and 30 April 2021. The aim was to assess the baseline clinical characteristics and their association with outcome for critically ill coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients admitted to the ICU and requiring invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). Demographic, clinical, laboratory, length-of-stay and mortality data were collected from medical records. In total, 66 critically ill patients admitted to the ICU were enrolled in this study. 77% were male, and the median age was 65.5 [57.0–70.8] years. Comorbidi-ties included obesity (67.2%), cardiovascular disease (63.6%) and type II diabetes (38.1%). Prone positioning was performed in most cases (68.2%) and one-third (34.8%) of patients required renal replacement therapy during their stay in the ICU. The median time to intubation after hospitalisation was eight [3.3–10.0] days. The median length-of-stay in the ICU was 12 [6.0–18.5] days and the overall mortality among all invasively ventilated patients in the ICU was 86%. In survivors, the duration of time between the onset of symptoms and hospitalisation, and time between the onset of symptoms and intubation, were found to be shorter than in non-survivors.