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Observational Study
. 2021 Mar 11;11(1):5803.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-85081-0.

Comparison of clinical characteristics and disease outcome of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza

Thomas Theo Brehm  1   2 , Marc van der Meirschen  3 , Annette Hennigs  3 , Kevin Roedl  4 , Dominik Jarczak  4 , Dominic Wichmann  4 , Daniel Frings  4 , Axel Nierhaus  4 , Tim Oqueka  5 , Walter Fiedler  5 , Maximilian Christopeit  6 , Christian Kraef  3   7 , Alexander Schultze  8 , Marc Lütgehetmann  9   10 , Marylyn M Addo  3   9 , Stefan Schmiedel  3   9 , Stefan Kluge #  4 , Julian Schulze Zur Wiesch #  3   9
Affiliations
Observational Study

Comparison of clinical characteristics and disease outcome of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza

Thomas Theo Brehm et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

While several studies have described the clinical course of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), direct comparisons with patients with seasonal influenza are scarce. We compared 166 patients with COVID-19 diagnosed between February 27 and June 14, 2020, and 255 patients with seasonal influenza diagnosed during the 2017-18 season at the same hospital to describe common features and differences in clinical characteristics and course of disease. Patients with COVID-19 were younger (median age [IQR], 59 [45-71] vs 66 [52-77]; P < 0001) and had fewer comorbidities at baseline with a lower mean overall age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index (mean [SD], 3.0 [2.6] vs 4.0 [2.7]; P < 0.001) than patients with seasonal influenza. COVID-19 patients had a longer duration of hospitalization (mean [SD], 25.9 days [26.6 days] vs 17.2 days [21.0 days]; P = 0.002), a more frequent need for oxygen therapy (101 [60.8%] vs 103 [40.4%]; P < 0.001) and invasive ventilation (52 [31.3%] vs 32 [12.5%]; P < 0.001) and were more frequently admitted to the intensive care unit (70 [42.2%] vs 51 [20.0%]; P < 0.001) than seasonal influenza patients. Among immunocompromised patients, those in the COVID-19 group had a higher hospital mortality compared to those in the seasonal influenza group (13 [33.3%] vs 8 [11.6%], P = 0.01). In conclusion, we show that COVID-19 patients were younger and had fewer baseline comorbidities than seasonal influenza patients but were at increased risk for severe illness. The high mortality observed in immunocompromised COVID-19 patients emphasizes the importance of protecting these patient groups from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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Conflict of interest statement

Axel Nierhaus declares that he received lecture honoraria and travel reimbursement from Thermo Fisher Scientific and CytoSorbents Europe. The authors declare they have no competing financial interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index (ACCI) of patients with COVID-19 and seasonal influenza. COVID-19 coronavirus disease 2019, ACCI age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Proportion of hospitalized patients discharged alive during the first 90 days after diagnosis compared by log-rank test.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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