Protracted course of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in moderately to severely immunocompromised patients

Abstract

There have been few studies comparing the clinical characteristics and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia in individuals with and without moderately to severely immunocompromised conditions. We reviewed adult patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection who had radiologic evidence of pneumonia at a tertiary hospital in Seoul, South Korea, from February 2020 to April 2022. Moderately to severely immunocompromised status was defined as medical conditions or treatments that resulted in increased risk of severe COVID-19 and weakened immune response to COVID-19 vaccine as recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The time to pneumonia development was defined as the time from symptom onset to the time when radiologic evidence of pneumonia was obtained. Viral clearance was defined as a Ct value > 30. COVID-19-related death was defined as 90-day death following imaging-confirmed pneumonia without any other plausible cause of death. A total of 467 patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia were analyzed. Of these, 102 (22%) were moderately to severely immunocompromised. The median (IQR) time to pneumonia development was significantly longer in moderately to severely immunocompromised patients (9.5 [6-14] days) than the comparator (6 [3-8] days), p < 0.001), as was the median time to viral clearance (21 versus 12 days, p < 0.001). Moderately to severely immunocompromised status (aOR, 18.39; 95% CI, 5.80-58.30; p < 0.001) was independently associated with COVID-19-related death. Patients with moderately to severely immunocompromised conditions are likely to experience a more protracted course of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and a worse outcome than those without these conditions.