Nomogram for Prediction of fatal outcome in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Pneumonia: A Multicenter Study

<p>Background & Aims: To develop an effective model of predicting fatal Outcome in the severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.</p><p>Methods: Between February 20, 2020 and April 4, 2020, consecutive COVID-19 patients from three designated hospitals were enrolled in this study. Independent high- risk factors associated with death were analyzed using Cox proportional hazard model. A prognostic nomogram was constructed to predict the survival of severe COVID-19 patients.</p><p>Results: There were 124 severe patients in the training cohort, and there were 71 and 76 severe patients in the two independent validation cohorts, respectively. Multivariate Cox analysis indicated that age ≥ 70 years (HR 1.184, 95% CI 1.061-1.321), Panting(breathing rate ≥ 30/min) (HR 3.300, 95% CI 2.509-6.286), lymphocyte count < 1.0 × 10⁹/L (HR 2.283, 95% CI 1.779-3.267), and IL-6 >10pg/mL (HR 3.029, 95% CI 1.567-7.116) were independent high-risk factors associated with fatal outcome. We developed the nomogram for identifying survival of severe COVID-19 patients in the training cohort (AUC 0.900, [95% CI 0.841-0.960], sensitivity 95.5%, specificity 77.5%); in validation cohort 1 (AUC 0.862, [95% CI 0.763-0.961], sensitivity 92.9%, specificity 64.5%); in validation cohort 2 (AUC 0.811, [95% CI 0.698-0.924], sensitivity 77.3%, specificity 73.5%). The calibration curve for probability of death indicated a good consistence between prediction by the nomogram and the actual observation. </p><p>Conclusions: This nomogram could help clinicians to identify severe patients who have high risk of death, and to develop more appropriate treatment strategies to reduce the mortality of severe patients.</p>