To reduce deaths caused by Covid-19 without treatment and vaccine, it is essential to identify high-risk Covid-19 patients before they get critically ill.
Calculating the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) score at the time of hospital admission can help find high-risk Covid-19 patients, local researchers said in a paper.
The research team at Yeungnam University College of Medicine published the paper titled, “Prognostic Accuracy of the SIRS, qSOFA, and NEWS for Early Detection of Clinical Deterioration in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients,” in the Journal of Korean Medical Science on Tuesday.
NEWS consists of seven parameters, including respiration rate, oxygen, and blood pressure, to help physicians detect a patient's clinical deterioration.
The research team said it conducted the retrospective study on 110 Covid-19 patients hospitalized at Yeungnam University Medical Center in Daegu. The result showed that NEWS was more helpful in predicting critical outcomes in Covid-19 than two other scoring systems, Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) and Quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (qSOFA).
SIRS detects sepsis early with four variables, including body temperature and heart rate. QSOFA aims to predict mortality by scoring coma scale, systolic blood pressure, and respiratory rate. QSOFA score of 2 or more means the probability of in-hospital mortality is high.
The research team said NEWS was more effective in predicting 28-day mortality than qSOFA. There was no significant difference between NEWS and SIRS.
In predicting critical outcomes, NEWS was superior to SIRS. Survival time was significantly shorter for patients with NEWS scores of seven or higher than those with NEWS scores lower than seven.
The research team said the Covid-19 fatality rate is estimated to be between 4.3 percent and 11 percent.
“To date, there is no effective antiviral treatment for Covid-19. Thus, early recognition of patients at high risk is important,” the researchers said in the paper. “Calculation of the NEWS at the time of hospital admission can predict critical outcomes in patients with Covid-19. Early intervention for high-risk patients can thereby improve clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients.”