Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of asthma on the risk for mortality among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in the United States by a… Click to show full abstract
Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of asthma on the risk for mortality among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in the United States by a quantitative meta-analysis. Methods A random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled odds ratio (OR) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). I2 statistic, sensitivity analysis, Begg’s test, meta-regression and subgroup analyses were also performed. Results The data based on 56 studies with 426,261 COVID-19 patients showed that there was a statistically significant association between asthma and the reduced risk for COVID-19 mortality in the United States (OR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.74-0.91). Subgroup analyses by age, male proportion, sample size, study design and setting demonstrated that pre-existing asthma was associated with a significantly reduced risk for COVID-19 mortality among studies with age ≥ 60 years old (OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.72-0.87), male proportion ≥ 55% (OR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.72-0.87), male proportion < 55% (OR: 0.81, 95% CI: 0.69-0.95), sample sizes ≥ 700 cases (OR: 0.80, 95% CI: 0.71-0.91), retrospective study/case series (OR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.75-0.89), prospective study (OR: 0.83, 95% CI: 0.70-0.98) and hospitalized patients (OR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.74-0.91). Meta-regression did reveal none of factors mentioned above were possible reasons of heterogeneity. Sensitivity analysis indicated the robustness of our findings. No publication bias was detected in Begg’s test (P = 0.4538). Conclusion Our findings demonstrated pre-existing asthma was significantly associated with a reduced risk for COVID-19 mortality in the United States.
               
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