MHB publishes nationwide clinical study on COVID-19

Neuruppin, 20 August 2020

Two-thirds of COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care units in Germany require mechanical ventilation. One-third of ventilated intensive care patients with COVID-19 dies, compared with one-fourth of non-ventilated intensive care patients. These are findings from a clinical study started in February and conducted by scientists from the Brandenburg Medical School together with clinicians of Helios hospitals. The results have just been published in the internationally recognized scientific journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection.

The expert team evaluated clinical data of all 1,904 patients with COVID-19 admitted to the Helios Group’s 86 hospitals in Germany since the start of the pandemic. The analysis reflects not only the pandemic’s early phase, but also reports on all patients with COVID-19 admitted over the four-months period until mid-June.

“Of all the patients admitted to hospitals with a SARS-Cov2 infection, about one-fifth (21%) require intensive care – women (16%) significantly less often than men (27%),” said Prof. Dr. Michael Hauptmann, Head of the Institute of Biostatistics and Registry Research at Brandenburg Medical School in Neuruppin, who was responsible for the study’s statistical analysis. “Among intensive care patients, 37% received no ventilation. Of the ventilated intensive care patients, one-third (33%) died, compared with only about one-quarter (23%) of the non-ventilated intensive care patients.”

“An important finding from the COVID-19 registry is that the clinical course of COVID-19 patients admitted to our hospitals is as poor as in countries like Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Belgium – countries with many more COVID-19 cases and COVID-19-related deaths than in Germany,” said Dr. Julius Dengler, who heads the Helios COVID-19 registry.

“The study is the largest of its type to date in Germany,” said Dr. Irit Nachtigall, Regional Director of Hygiene in the Helios network, who coordinated the evaluation of the scientific data. “We include all COVID-19 patients treated in the Helios network – from small specialist clinic to university hospital, regardless of the type of health insurance.” The study provides a nationwide overview of different patient groups, including those admitted to the ICU, with or without mechanical ventilation.

“The Brandenburg Medical School and the Helios Group identified this opportunity and conducted the study in an academic- clinical partnership, within a very short time period. We were able to create a sustainable resource and will derive more empirical evidence which will help us to better understand and treat the virus”, said Prof. Dr. Michael Hauptmann.