Clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients admitted to Intensive Care Unit in Panama during the first pandemic wave admissions in 2020

The severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS COV-2) caused a global pandemic of COVID-19. Most of people affected are admitted to hospital with various grades of ADRS. A small proportion of these patients requires intensive care unit management and treatment. However not all of them survive. This study aims to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients admitted to the intensive care units in Panama main hospital in the first six months of pandemic with available information. Special focus has been oriented to blood and respiratory biomarkers to correlate with survivors and non-survivors. Our results show that patients between 56-75 years old, with hypertension, obesity, and diabetes comorbid conditions are more likely to die in intensive care units. Regarding the PaFi ratio, we observed a greater proportion of non-survivor with values less than 200. The triglycerides, urea nitrogen, creatinine and procalcitonin levels resulted significantly higher in those non survivors. During clinical management, half of patient that were administered Tocilizumab did not survived. These results support the notion that age, comorbidities as well as therapeutic management of patient in intensive care units contribute to the final outcome. We recommend reinforcing patient care strategy, especially in those patients with clinical conditions that favor fatal outcomes.