Charles Neu, Philipp Baumbach, André Scherag, Andreas Kortgen, JulianeGötze, Sina M. Coldewey
Abstract
Introduction
Severe COVID-19 constitutes a form of viral sepsis. Part of the specific pathophysiological pattern of this condition is the occurrence of cardiovascular events. These include pulmonary embolism, arrhythmias and cardiomyopathy as manifestations of extra-pulmonary organ dysfunction. Hitherto, the prognostic impact of these cardiovascular events and their predisposing risk factors remains unclear. This study aims to explore this question in two cohorts of viral sepsis–COVID-19 and influenza–in order to identify new theragnostic strategies to improve the short- and long-term outcome of these two diseases.
Methods and analysis
Study design
This study is a prospective multi-centre cohort study of patients with sepsis. Patient recruitment commenced in March 2021 aiming to include up to 160 patients with COVID-19-associated sepsis and up to 160 patients with influenza virus associated sepsis. The last follow-up is planned for December 2022.
Study setting
Patient recruitment takes place in intensive care units (ICUs) in up to 10 hospitals in Germany. Follow-up assessments will take place in the form of phone interviews and questionnaires.
Discussion and outlook
The ICROVID study aims to address the lack of sufficient prognostic parameters for the outcome of patients with COVID-19 sepsis. Due to its prospective multicentre design, the ICROVID study will be able to assess the influence of cardiovascular events on both the short- and long-term morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 and influenza. Comparisons of the analytical cohort with datasets of patients with bacterial sepsis may yield findings that are specific to viral sepsis. This study is limited to patients with severe COVID-19 and influenza, identified prognostic factors may not be relevant to non-severe cases. The results of this study may present a first step towards a more personalized approach to sepsis therapy.
Citation: Neu C, Baumbach P, Scherag A, Kortgen A, Götze J, Coldewey SM (2022) Identification of cardiovascular and molecular prognostic factors for the morbidity and mortality in COVID-19-sepsis (ICROVID): Protocol for a prospective multi-centre cohort study. PLoS ONE 17(6): e0269247. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0269247
Editor: Jamie Royle, UNITED KINGDOM
Received: March 29, 2022; Accepted: April 21, 2022; Published: June 3, 2022
Copyright: © 2022 Neu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. All relevant data from this study will be made available upon study completion.
Funding: This study was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF grant 03COV07 to SMC). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269247#abstract0
