Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Aug 15, 2023; 14(8): 1259-1270
Published online Aug 15, 2023. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v14.i8.1259
Risk and predictors of severity and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes and COVID-19 in Dubai
Fatheya Alawadi, Alaaeldin Bashier, Azza Abdulaziz Bin Hussain, Nada Al-Hashmi, Fawzi Al Tayb Bachet, Mohamed Mahmoud Aly Hassanein, Marwan Abdelrahim Zidan, Rania Soued, Amar Hassan Khamis, Debasmita Mukhopadhyay, Fatima Abdul, Aya Osama, Fatima Sulaiman, Muhammad Hamed Farooqi, Riad Abdel Latif Bayoumi
Fatheya Alawadi, Alaaeldin Bashier, Azza Abdulaziz Bin Hussain, Nada Al-Hashmi, Fawzi Al Tayb Bachet, Mohamed Mahmoud Aly Hassanein, Department of Endocrinology, Dubai Academic Health Corporation, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Marwan Abdelrahim Zidan, Department of Medical Education and Research, Dubai Academic Health Corporation, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Rania Soued, Department of Radiology, Mediclinic City Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Amar Hassan Khamis, Debasmita Mukhopadhyay, Fatima Abdul, Aya Osama, Fatima Sulaiman, College of Medicine, Mohamed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Muhammad Hamed Farooqi, Dubai Diabetes Center, Dubai Academic Health Corporation, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Riad Abdel Latif Bayoumi, Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Author contributions: Alawadi F, Bashier A, Bin Hussain AA, Al-Hashmi N, Bachet FAT, Hassanein MMA, Farooqi MH, Abdul F and Osama A contributed to patient recruitment; Zidan MA and Khamis AH contributed to statistics; Soued R contributed to radiology; Mukhopadhyay D and Sulaiman F contributed to Laboratory; Alawadi F, Khamis AH, Hassanein MMA and Bayoumi RAL contributed to write manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Dubai Scientific Research Ethics Committee (DSREC) of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), No. DSREC-05/2020-17 was issued on 28th May 2020.
Informed consent statement: Patients' informed consent was waived by DSREC as part of the policy to garner information about the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, patient consent was not obtained.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: All primary data is available on request at https://www.mbru.ac.ae//college-of-medicine/.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Riad Abdel Latif Bayoumi, MBBS, PhD, Professor, Basic Medical Sciences, College of Medicine, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Building 14, Dubai Healthcare City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. riad.bayoumi@mbru.ac.ae
Received: March 28, 2023
Peer-review started: March 28, 2023
First decision: May 8, 2023
Revised: May 25, 2023
Accepted: June 19, 2023
Article in press: June 19, 2023
Published online: August 15, 2023
Processing time: 136 Days and 1.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Globally, patients with diabetes suffer from increased disease severity and mortality due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Old age, high body mass index (BMI), comorbidities, and complications of diabetes were recognized as major risk factors for infection severity and mortality. To identify the independent predictors of mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, we performed a cross-sectional nested case-control study during the first wave of the pandemic. It seems that the mortality of patients with T2D is driven by a significantly higher pro-inflammatory response to COVID-19 as evidenced by higher C-reactive protein, white blood cell, and lymphopenia. Mortality also seems to be synergistic with the comorbidities and complications of T2D in patients with COVID-19. The identified mortality predictors will help healthcare workers prioritize the management of patients with COVID-19.