Chagas disease, COVID-19 coinfection does not worsen outcomes

Patients coinfected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Chagas disease (CD) are more likely to have cardiovascular comorbidities, but do not seem to suffer from worse in-hospital outcomes, a recent study has found.

The study included 31 COVID-19 patients with concomitant CD (median age 74.0 years, 45.2 percent men). Medical records were reviewed to assess demographic, clinical, symptom, treatment, and other relevant data. A parallel group of 124 matched COVID-19, non-CD controls was also included (median age 72.0 years, 44.4 percent men).

At baseline, age, sex distribution, alcohol and smoking habits, and the total number of comorbidities were comparable between groups. However, chronic heart failure (25.8 percent vs 9.7 percent; p=0.031) and atrial fibrillation/flutter (29.0 percent vs 5.6 percent; p<0.001) were significantly more common among CD patients.

Therapeutic strategy was likewise comparable between groups, with corticosteroids and macrolides being common interventions of choice, along with dexamethasone. The use of therapeutic anticoagulation tended to be higher in CD patients but not significantly so (19.3 percent vs 10.5 percent; p=0.206).

In turn, clinical outcomes remained comparable between groups. Non-CD COVID-19 controls tended to develop nosocomial infections more frequently but failed to reach significance (19.4 percent vs 9.7 percent). Length of stay (p=0.220), admission to the intensive care unit (p=0.658), thromboembolic events (p=0.346), mechanical ventilation (p=0.834) and death (p>0.999) all occurred at statistically similar rates between groups.