Renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system blockers and region-specific variations in COVID-19 outcomes: findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved as a global crisis with high mortality seen in elderly and people with cardiometabolic diseases. The use of renin angiotensin aldosterone system (RAAS) blockers in these patients is known to enhance the expression of ACE-2, the chief binding receptor of SARS-CoV-2 and may potentially enhance infectivity. Objective To provide a pooled estimate of the effect of RAAS blocker usage on COVID-19 outcomes. Data Sources An electronic literature search was performed for published (using MEDLINE/PubMed and Google Scholar) and preprint (using bioRxiv and medRxiv) studies of interest. The last search was conducted on 9 th July 2020. Study Selection Studies reporting data on RAAS blocker use and COVID-19 mortality and severity were included in the review. Data Extraction and Synthesis Mortality data and severity data including hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, invasive ventilation, steroid use and acute kidney injury (AKI) were recorded. Pooled Odds ratio (OR) estimates were reported with 95% CIs and level of heterogeneity ( I 2 ). Main Outcomes and Measures Odds of mortality in users of RAAS blockers with respect to non-users was the primary outcome. Odds of severity, hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, steroid use, and AKI in users with respect to non-users of RAAS blockers were the secondary outcomes. Results Of 1348 articles identified, 48 published studies were included in the final analysis, with a total of 26432 patients from 31 studies included in mortality analysis and 20127 patients from 23 studies included in severity analysis. Majority of the studies (41.6%) were from China. No increased risk of mortality (Pooled OR 0.91 (0.65-1.26), I 2 =89%) or severity (Pooled OR 1.08 (0.79-1.46), I 2 =88%) was seen with RAAS blockers. The drug class was protective in hypertension (pooled OR 0.63 (0.46-0.86), I 2 =58%). Severity of COVID-19 outcomes was found to be high for Europeans (Pooled OR 2.08 (1.52-2.85), I 2 =77%) and US patients (Pooled OR 1.87 (1.62-2.17) in users of RAAS-blockers. A nearly 4 times higher risk of hospitalization, two times higher risk of ICU admission and mechanical ventilation was observed in US patients on RAAS blockers. No net effect on mortality and severity outcomes was seen in Chinese patients. RAAS blocker usage did not have any effect on corticosteroid use and AKI in Chinese patients. Conclusions and Relevance Use of RAAS blockers is not associated with increased risk of mortality in COVID-19 patients. Reduced mortality is seen in hypertensive patients with COVID-19 and therefore the drugs should be continued in this subset. US and European patients are at higher risk of severe outcomes. Pharmacogenomic differences may explain the ethnicity related variations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.016 | 0.040 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.016 | 0.040 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".