The reported death rates of patients being treated for coronavirus in intensive care units around the world have fallen by almost a third since the beginning of the pandemic, from 60% of patients to 42% at the end of May, according to new research published Wednesday.
It doesn’t appear that there’s been a dramatic change in the virus or specific treatments for patients that lowered death rates, and it could be that hospitals were reporting only the worst outcomes at first, British researchers reported in the journal Anaesthesia.
“Our analysis is reassuring in that in-ICU mortality is lower than early reports suggested,” Dr. Tim Cook of Royal United Hospitals in Bath, UK, and colleagues wrote.
“This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis of outcomes of patients admitted to ICU with COVID-19.”
The researchers looked at the data from 24 observational studies, including 10,150 patients in Asia, Europe and North America. They reported mortality rates of between 0% and 85% for coronavirus patients treated in the ICU.
“Sub-group analysis by continent showed that mortality is broadly consistent across the globe,” they wrote. But it has changed over time.
“As the pandemic has progressed, the reported mortality rates have fallen from above 50% to close to 40%” as of May 31, they wrote. Yet no specific treatment for coronavirus was found over the time. There is still no cure, and doctors are applying various cocktails of drugs – including steroids and blood thinners – to keep patients alive.
“There are several explanations for this finding. It may reflect the rapid learning that has taken place on a global scale due to the prompt publication of clinical reports early in the pandemic. It may also be that ICU admission criteria have changed over time, for example, with more non-invasive ventilatory management outside ICU,” they wrote.
“There is a possibility, too, that early studies, which were smaller, were prone to overestimating mortality,” they added.
