Male sex identified by global COVID-19 meta-analysis as a risk factor for death and ITU admission.
meta_analysis · Level I
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33298944.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19741-6 and PMC identifier 7726563.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, exhibits differences in morbidity and mortality between sexes. Here, we present a meta-analysis of 3,111,714 reported global cases to demonstrate that, whilst there is no difference in the proportion of males and females with confirmed COVID-19, male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission (OR = 2.84; 95% CI = 2.06, 3.92) and higher odds of death (OR = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.31, 1.47) compared to females. With few exceptions, the sex bias observed in COVID-19 is a worldwide phenomenon. An appreciation of how sex is influencing COVID-19 outcomes will have important implications for clinical management and mitigation strategies for this disease.
Medical subject headings
- COVID-19
- Mortality
- Sex Factors