Background: COVID-19 is a relatively new disease, and most of its clinical factors, such as inhaled corticosteroids and their relation to disease severity, are not yet well established.

Methods:This retrospective cohort study sought to investigate the outcome of prior ICS use in COVID-19 patients with Asthma and COPD. This included 384 COVID-19 adults confirmed by RT-PCR, clinically diagnosed with asthma and COPD, admitted from March 1, 2020 to September 30, 2022. The investigators determined the presence or absence of ICS use prior to hospitalization and correlated the outcomes as to the need for oxygen support (no oxygen support, nasal cannula, face mask, rebreather mask, high flow nasal cannula, BiPAP, mechanical ventilator), morbidity (length of hospital and ICU stay) and mortality. The data were analyzed and compared using Independent T-test, Mann-Whitney U test and Chi-Square test.

Results showed that there is no statistical significance in terms of the need for oxygen support, ICU admission, length of hospital stay, and mortality of COVID-19 patients with Asthma and/or COPD, whether or not on ICS.

This study concluded that pre-hospitalization ICS use did not show benefits in the outcomes of COVID-19 patients with asthma and COPD. The potential protective effects of prior ICS use on COVID-19 patients need to be further studied with a larger sample size. The higher mortality rates among COVID-19 patients with COPD compared to asthma is plausibly due to concomitant comorbidities such as older age, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic kidney diseases, etc.