Association of diabetes and outcomes in patients with COVID-19: Propensity score-matched analyses from a French retrospective cohort

BACKGROUND: Our study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of patients with and without diabetes admitted to hospital with COVID-19. METHODS: This retrospective multicentre cohort study comprised 24 tertiary medical centres in France, and included 2851 patients (675 with diabetes) hospitalized for COVID-19 between 26 February and 20 April 2020. A propensity score-matching (PSM) method (1:1 matching including patients’ characteristics, medical history, vital statistics and laboratory results) was used to compare patients with and without diabetes (n = 603 per group). The primary outcome was admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) and/or in-hospital death. RESULTS: After PSM, all baseline characteristics were well balanced between those with and without diabetes: mean age was 71.2 years; 61.8% were male; and mean BMI was 29 kg/m(2). A history of cardiovascular, chronic kidney and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases were found in 32.8%, 22.1% and 6.4% of participants, respectively. The risk of experiencing the primary outcome was similar in patients with or without diabetes [hazard ratio (HR): 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.95–1.41; P = 0.14], and was 1.29 (95% CI: 0.97–1.69) for in-hospital death, 1.26 (95% CI: 0.9–1.72) for death with no transfer to an ICU and 1.14 (95% CI: 0.88–1.47) with transfer to an ICU. CONCLUSION: In this retrospective study cohort of patients hospitalized for COVID-19, diabetes was not significantly associated with a higher risk of severe outcomes after PSM. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04344327.