The atherogenic index of plasma as a predictor of mortality in patients with COVID-19.
Özge Turgay Yıldırım, Şeyhmus Kaya
PMID 33524862WHAT IT FOUND
In 139 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, a higher first-day blood lipid ratio (AIP) was linked to death.
The reported cut-off was 0.6285, but the study was small and retrospective, so it is not ready for routine use.
Key findings
01Higher AIP was associated with in-hospital death: deceased patients had mean AIP 0.77 ± 0.23 and survivors 0.14 ± 0.52 (p < 0.001).
02ROC analysis found AIP area under the curve 0.850 (95% CI 0.772 to 0.928); the cut-off 0.6285 had sensitivity 78.6% and specificity 80.5%.
03After matching 21 deceased and 21 survivors on age, sex and underlying diseases, deceased patients still had higher triglyceride 163.0 (110.0 to 207.0) vs 77.0 (36.0 to 119.5) and higher AIP 0.79 ± 0.24 vs 0.12 ± 0.51.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was small: 139 patients analysed, with 26 deaths. The study was retrospective, and 419 of 561 patients were excluded because they had no admission lipid profile. Only hospitalized patients were included, so it does not describe people with milder or outpatient infection. The deceased and survivor groups differed in age and many underlying diseases, so the AIP association may be confounded. The reported odds ratio for AIP was 1253.371 with 95% confidence interval 1.547 to 1015343.021, which makes the size of effect uncertain.
Declared interests
No funding was taken for this study, and the authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat an admission AIP above 0.6285 as a validated predictor of death. The study was retrospective, included 139 patients, and the authors called for a larger multicenter study.