J Infect Chemother . Fatty liver on computed tomography scan on admission is a risk factor for severe coronavirus disease

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J Infect Chemother


. 2021 Oct 20;S1341-321X(21)00282-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.jiac.2021.10.013. Online ahead of print.
Fatty liver on computed tomography scan on admission is a risk factor for severe coronavirus disease


Ayako Okuhama ¹ , Masatoshi Hotta ² , Masahiro Ishikane ³ , Akira Kawashima ¹ , Yusuke Miyazato ¹ , Mari Terada ⁴ , Gen Yamada ¹ , Kohei Kanda ¹ , Makoto Inada ¹ , Lubna Sato ¹ , Mitsuhiro Sato ¹ , Yutaro Akiyama ¹ , Tetsuya Suzuki ¹ , Takato Nakamoto ¹ , Hidetoshi Nomoto ¹ , Satoshi Ide ¹ , Keiji Nakamura ¹ , Sho Saito ¹ , Noriko Kinoshita ¹ , Kei Yamamoto ¹ , Shinichiro Morioka ¹ , Mugen Ujiie ¹ , Kayoko Hayakawa ¹ , Satoshi Kustuna ¹ , Yoshitaka Shida ² , Tsuyoshi Tajima ² , Katsuji Teruya ⁵ , Yumi Funato ⁶ , Makiko Yamamoto ⁶ , Shinyu Izumi ⁷ , Masayuki Hojo ⁷ , Haruhito Sugiyama ⁸ , Norio Ohmagari ¹



Affiliations

• PMID: 34756574
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jiac.2021.10.013

Abstract

Objectives: To alleviate the overflow of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in hospitals, less invasive and simple criteria are required to triage the patients. We evaluated the relationship between COVID-19 severity and fatty liver on plain computed tomography (CT) scan performed on admission.
Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we considered all COVID-19 patients at a large tertiary care hospital between January 31 and August 31, 2020. COVID-19 severity was categorized into severe (moderate and severe) and non-severe (asymptomatic and mild) groups, based on the Japanese National COVID-19 guidelines. Fatty liver was detected on plain CT scan. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate factors associated with severe COVID-19.
Results: Of 222 patients (median age: 52 years), 3.2%, 58.1%, 20.7%, and 18.0% presented with asymptomatic, mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19, respectively. Although 59.9% had no fatty liver on plain CT, mild, moderate, and severe fatty liver occurred in 13.1%, 18.9%, and 8.1%, respectively. Age and presence of fatty liver were significantly associated with severe COVID-19.
Conclusion: Our study showed that fatty liver on plain CT scan on admission can become a risk factor for severe COVID-19. This finding may help clinicians to easily triage COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; Outcome; Pneumonia; Triage.