Death rates among seriously ill COVID-19 patients dropped sharply when doctors reduced the use of mechanical ventilators, according to an analysis by the UK's Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre.
The ICNARC analysis found the chances of dying in an intensive care unit (ICU) went from 43% before the pandemic peaked to 34% in the period after.
The report found that no new drugs nor changes to clinical guidelines were introduced in that period that could account for the improvement. However, the use of mechanical ventilators fell dramatically. Before the peak in admissions on 1 April, 75.9% of COVID-19 patients were intubated within 24 hours of getting to an ICU, a proportion which fell to 44.1% after the peak. And overall numbers of people put on a ventilator at any time dropped from 83 per cent to 61 per cent either side of the peak.
Meanwhile, the proportion of ICU patients put on a ventilator at any point dropped 22 percentage points to 61% either side of the peak. Researchers suggested this could have been a result of “informal learning” among networks of doctors that patients on ventilators were faring worse than expected.
[link url="https://www.icnarc.org/Our-Audit/Audits/Cmp/Reports"]ICNARC reports[/link]
[link url="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/03/covid-death-rates-dropped-doctors-rejected-ventilators/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1282767&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES20200904&utm_campaign=DM1282767"]Full report in The Daily Telegraph[/link]