Association of ventilator type with hospital mortality in critically ill patients with SARS-CoV2 infection: a prospective study

Background To evaluate the association between ventilator type and hospital mortality in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) related to COVID-19 (SARS-CoV2 infection), a single-center prospective observational study in France. Results We prospectively included consecutive adults admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of a university-affiliated tertiary hospital for ARDS related to proven COVID-19, between March 2020 and July 2021. All patients were intubated. We compared two patient groups defined by whether an ICU ventilator or a less sophisticated ventilator such as a sophisticated turbine-based transport ventilator was used. Kaplan–Meier survival curves were plotted. Cox multivariate regression was performed to identify associations between patient characteristics and hospital mortality. We included 189 patients (140 [74.1%] men) with a median age of 65 years [IQR, 55–73], of whom 61 (32.3%) died before hospital discharge. By multivariate analysis, factors associated with in-hospital mortality were age ≥ 70 years (HR, 2.11; 95% CI, 1.24–3.59; P = 0.006), immunodeficiency (HR, 2.43; 95% CI, 1.16–5.09; P = 0.02) and serum creatinine ≥ 100 µmol/L (HR, 3.01; 95% CI, 1.77–5.10; P