Cirrhotic COVID-19 survivors show poor short-term outcomes, no long-term differences

SAN DIEGO- Patients with cirrhosis who survived COVID-19 may not have a long-term exacerbation of underlying disease or death compared to patients with cirrhosis who never contracted COVID-19, according to Digestive Disease Week 2022 data.

“While previous studies have focused on the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 disease in patients with cirrhosis, there is a paucity of data regarding the impact of an episode of COVID-19 on the course of underlying liver disease in cirrhosis,” Monica Chowdhry, MD, gastroenterology fellow of West Virginia University, Morgantown, Healio told.

Using TriNetX, a multi-institutional research network, Chowdhry and colleagues conducted a retrospective study to identify 18,228 patients with compensated cirrhosis who were tested for COVID-19 from January 2020 to December 2020. Among them, 1,217 patients tested positive for COVID-19 and 17,011 patients tested negative and were never diagnosed for COVID-19. The risk for decompensation of cirrhosisneed for inpatient/ICU services and mortality served as primary outcomes.

Short-term outcomes in the two groups were compared at 3 months, with those who survived at 3 months, followed up to 1 year to determine long-term outcomes. After propensity score, matching results were compared after adjusting for confounding variables such as age, gender, race, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, chronic lower respiratory tract disease and nicotine dependence.

According to the researchers, after 3 months, patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had a significantly higher risk of death. This remained high after matching the propenity score. In addition, these patients had a higher risk of decompensation and inpatient or ICU care. At 1 year, in both the unmatched and matched analysis, follow-up showed no increased risk of mortality, decompensation and inpatient or ICU care.

“In this first major study addressing this question, we found that while the short-term outcomes are poor in patients with cirrhosis who developed COVID-19, if these patients survive the COVID-19 episode, they are not more likely to have new decompensation. or death at 3-12 months than cirrhosis who have never had COVID-19,” Chowdhry told Healio.

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