Renin-angiotensin System Blocker in COVID-19. A Single Center Study.

Early during the Covid-19 pandemic, concerns were raised regarding potential adverse outcomes in patients taking ACEIs/ARBs. These concerns were based on animal studies showing increased ACE-2 expression in mice treated with ACEI/ARB. This is a single-center retrospective cohort study of 289 patients diagnosed with 2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) hospitalized between March of 2020 and June of 2020. The study was intended to investigate the impact of ACEIs and/or ARBs on in-hospital mortality, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, post-admission hemodialysis requirement and the need for mechanical ventilation in patients with COVID-19. This cohort of 289 patients included 139/289 (48%) women with a mean age of 61 ± 19 years. Patients using ACEIs/ARBs were older (69.68 vs 57.9 years; p <0.0001), more likely to have a history of hypertension 97% vs 36% (p <0.0001), diabetes mellitus 48% vs 20.9% (p < 0.0001), chronic heart failure 11.39% vs 4.29% (p < 0.0512), coronary artery disease 20.25% vs 7.14% ( p <0.0025), stroke/TIA 7.59% vs 2.38% (p < 0.0761), chronic kidney disease 11.39% vs 3.33% (p<0.0167), atrial fibrillation/ flutter 18.99% vs 7.14% (p<0.0080), and dementia 22.7% vs 11.4% (p<0.0233) compared to the non-user group. There was significantly higher in-hospital mortality in patients using ACEIs/ARBs than non-users respectively (32.9% vs 15.2%, p<0.0015). However, a multivariate logistics regression analysis performed to adjust for common confounders demonstrated no significant difference in all-cause in-patient mortality (p 0.7141). Admission to ICU, post-admission hemodialysis requirement, and mechanical ventilation showed no significant differences between the two groups (p= NS). This study suggests that the use of ACEIs and ARBs in patients with COVID-19 was not found to significantly increase all-cause in-hospital mortality, ICU admissions, and hemodialysis and mechanical ventilation requirements.