The following is a summary of “Biomarker states and risk of death among individuals hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection,” published in the February 2025 issue of BMC Infectious Diseases by Thaweethai et al.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to identify hospitalized individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection at higher risk of death by analyzing biomarker profiles across multiple domains and changes over time.
They utilized electronic health records to analyze individuals hospitalized at a Massachusetts General Brigham hospital for at least 24 hours within 5 days before and 30 days after a COVID-19 diagnosis. The K-means clustering identified profiles among 20 eligible biomarkers, and proportional hazards models estimated 30-day mortality at hospitalization and 7 days post-hospitalization (i.e., landmark models).
The results showed that 12,942 individuals were included, with 1,198 deaths within 30 days and 6 biomarker-defined states were identified: normal/reference, hematologic, inflammatory and hematologic, metabolic, kidney, hematologic, and metabolic, and cardio-thrombotic, liver, and metabolic. The risk of death within 30 days was higher in States 3, 4, 5, and 6, with adjusted hazard ratios ranging from 3.6 to 7.8, compared to individuals in State 1 at hospitalization. Similar trends were observed in the landmark model.
Investigators concluded that distinct biomarker-based sub-phenotypes existed among hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2, and specific phenotypes correlated with increased 30-day mortality.
Source: bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-025-10651-w
