Many COVID-19 patients who needed to go on mechanical ventilators ended up dying, results from three studies show.
The first study was conducted by the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre in the United Kingdom. It found that only 33 of 98 coronavirus patients on a ventilator were discharged from the hospital, NPR reports.
The second study, published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, examined 52 critically ill adult patients with confirmed cases of the new coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan, China, between late December 2019 and Jan 26. Thirty of the 37 patients requiring mechanical ventilation had died at the 28-day mark, and three patients still required invasive ventilation.
The third study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, assessed 24 patients with confirmed COVID-19 at nine Seattle area hospitals who were admitted to the intensive care unit, beginning in February. Data was available through March 23. Researchers found that of the 18 patients who needed mechanical ventilation, nine died, and three continued to receive ventilation through the end of the study period.