Association of hypertension, diabetes, stroke, cancer, kidney disease, and high-cholesterol with COVID-19 disease severity and fatality: A systematic review

Nazar Zaki, Hany Alashwal, Sahar Ibrahim

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

137 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background and aims: To undertake a review and critical appraisal of published/preprint reports that offer methods of determining the effects of hypertension, diabetes, stroke, cancer, kidney issues, and high-cholesterol on COVID-19 disease severity. Methods: A search was conducted by two authors independently on the freely available COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19). We developed an automated search engine to screen a total of 59,000 articles in a few seconds. Filtering of the articles was then undertaken using keywords and questions, e.g. “Effects of diabetes on COVID/normal coronavirus/SARS-CoV-2/nCoV/COVID-19 disease severity, mortality?“. The search terms were repeated for all the comorbidities considered in this paper. Additional articles were retrieved by searching via Google Scholar and PubMed. Findings: A total of 54 articles were considered for a full review. It was observed that diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol levels possess an apparent relation to COVID-19 severity. Other comorbidities, such as cancer, kidney disease, and stroke, must be further evaluated to determine a strong relationship to the virus. Conclusion: Reports associating cancer, kidney disease, and stroke with COVID-19 should be carefully interpreted, not only because of the size of the samples, but also because patients could be old, have a history of smoking, or have any other clinical condition suggesting that these factors might be associated with the poor COVID-19 outcomes rather than the comorbidity itself. Further research regarding this relationship and its clinical management is warranted.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1133-1142
Number of pages10
JournalDiabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews
Volume14
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 1 2020

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • Cancer
  • Coronavirus
  • Diabetes
  • High blood pressure
  • High cholesterol
  • Hypertension
  • Kidney
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Stroke

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Internal Medicine
  • Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Association of hypertension, diabetes, stroke, cancer, kidney disease, and high-cholesterol with COVID-19 disease severity and fatality: A systematic review'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this