Risk factors associated with day-30 mortality in patients over 60 years old admitted in ICU for severe COVID-19: the Senior-COVID-Rea Multicentre Survey protocol

INTRODUCTION: With the spread of COVID-19 epidemic, health plans must be adapted continuously. There is an urgent need to define the best care courses of patients with COVID-19, especially in intensive care units (ICUs), according to their individualised benefit/risk ratio. Since older age is associated with poorer short-term and long-term outcomes, prediction models are needed, that may assist clinicians in their ICU admission decision. Senior-COVID-Rea was designed to evaluate, in patients over 60 years old admitted in ICU for severe COVID-19 disease, the impact of age and geriatric and paraclinical parameters on their mortality 30 days after ICU admission. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This is a multicentre survey protocol to be conducted in seven hospitals of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, France. All patients over 60 years old admitted in ICU for severe COVID-19 infection (or their legally acceptable representative) will be proposed to enter the study and to fill in a questionnaire regarding their functional and nutritional parameters 1 month before COVID-19 infection. Paraclinical parameters at ICU admission will be collected: lymphocytes and neutrophils counts, high-fluorescent lymphoid cells and immature granulocytes percentages (Sysmex data), D-dimers, C-reactive protein, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatinine, CT scan for lung extension rate as well as clinical resuscitation scores, and the delay between the first signs of infection and ICU admission. The primary outcome will be the overall survival at day 30 post-ICU admission. The analysis of factors predicting mortality at day 30 will be carried out using univariate and multivariate logistic regressions. Multivariate logistic regression will consider up to 15 factors. The ambition of this trial, which takes into account the different approaches of geriatric vulnerability, is to define the respective abilities of different operational criteria of frailty to predict patients’ outcomes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol was ethically approved. The results of the primary and secondary objectives will be published in peer-reviewed journals. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04422340.