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. 2022 May;8(1):e002063.
doi: 10.1136/rmdopen-2021-002063.

COVID-19 infection among patients with autoinflammatory diseases: a study on 117 French patients compared with 1545 from the French RMD COVID-19 cohort: COVIMAI - the French cohort study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patient with systemic autoinflammatory diseases

Rim Bourguiba  1 , Maeva Kyheng  2 , Isabelle Koné-Paut  3 , Diane Rouzaud  4 , Jerome Avouac  5 , Mathilde Devaux  6 , Nassim Ait Abdallah  7 , Bruno Fautrel  8 , Nicole Ferreira-Maldent  9 , Vincent Langlois  10 , Emmanuel Ledoult  11 , Hubert Nielly  12 , Viviane Queyrel  13 , Jérémie Sellam  14 , Nathalie Tieulie  15 , Pascal Chazerain  16 , Philippe Evon  17 , Julien Labreuche  18 , Léa Savey  1 , Veronique Hentgen  19 , Gilles Grateau  1 , Sophie Georgin-Lavialle  20 ; FAI2R/SFR/SNFMI/SOFREMIP/CRI/IMIDIATE consortium and contributors
Collaborators, Affiliations

COVID-19 infection among patients with autoinflammatory diseases: a study on 117 French patients compared with 1545 from the French RMD COVID-19 cohort: COVIMAI - the French cohort study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patient with systemic autoinflammatory diseases

Rim Bourguiba et al. RMD Open. 2022 May.

Abstract

Objective: There is little known about SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with systemic autoinflammatory disease (SAID). This study aimed to describe epidemiological features associated with severe disease form and death. Mortality between patients with and without SAID hospitalised for SARS-CoV-2 infection was compared.

Methods: A national multicentric prospective cohort study was conducted from the French Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMD) COVID-19 cohort. Patients with SAID were matched with patients with non-SAID on age±7 years, gender and number of comorbidities to consider important confounding factors. Impact of SAID on severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection was analysed using multinomial logistic regression for severity in three classes (mild, moderate and severe with mild status as reference). Fine-Gray regression model for length of hospital stay and binomial logistic regression model for risk of death at 30 days.

Results: We identified 117 patients with SAID (sex ratio 0.84, 17 children) and compared them with 1545 patients with non-autoinflammatory immune-mediated inflammatory disorders (non-SAID). 67 patients had a monogenic SAID (64 with familial Mediterranean fever). Other SAIDs were Behçet' disease (n=21), undifferentiated SAID (n=16), adult-onset Still disease (n=9) and systemic-onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis (n=5). Ten adults developed severe form (8.6%). Six patients died. All children had a benign disease. After matching on age±7 years, sex and number of comorbidities, no significant difference between the two groups in length of stay and the severity of infection was noted.

Conclusion: As identified in the whole French RMD COVID-19 cohort, patients with SAID on corticosteroids and with multiple comorbidities are prone to develop more severe COVID-19 forms.

Keywords: COVID-19; autoimmune diseases; biological therapy; familial Mediterranean fever.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

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