Treatments and Outcomes
Table 3 showed comparing of ICU admission, the complication rates, treatments, requirement of oxygen support, and clinical outcomes between two groups. There were no ICU admissions and no complications of ARDS, acute renal injury and acute liver injury for all the pregnant throughout the study period, as compared with 4.0 % ICU admission rate (P = 0.584), 0.8 % ARDS (P = 1.000), 0.8 % acute renal injury (P = 1.000) and 3.2 % acute liver injury (P = 0.584) in the 124 non-pregnant patients.
One hundred and thirty-two patients (85.2%) received antiviral therapy, including oseltamivir, arbidol hydrochloride, ribavirin and peramivir. Treatment regimens of antiviral therapy were similar between the two groups (P = 0.955). Ninety-four (60.6%) were administered with empirical antibiotic treatment, 27 (87.1%) pregnant patients and 67 (54.0%) non-pregnant patients were given antibiotic treatments respectively (P = 0.001). For 31 pregnant patients, 10 (37%) were treated with a single antibiotic and 17 patients (63%) were given combination therapy. The antibiotics used were cefoperazone sodium tazobactam sodium, ornidazole, meropenem, azithromycin, meropenem and cefathiamidine. 43 (27.7%) patients were given systematic corticosteroids, fifteen of 31 (48%) pregnant women were treated with corticosteroid after caesarean section, as compared with 20 (16.1%) in non-pregnant patients (P < 0.001). Also, 32 (20.6%) patients received immunoglobulin therapy. More details of treatment regimens of pregnant women could be found in the supplement (Table S1). Seventy-one percent of patients (71%) in the pregnant group needed mask and nasal cannula, whereas only 27.4% in the non-pregnant women required mask and nasal cannula (P < 0.001). Non-invasive ventilation or high-flow nasal cannula was required in 2 (1.6%) non-pregnant patients. One case in non-pregnant group needed invasive mechanical ventilation ECMO, this difference did not reach statistical significance.
At the end of follow-up (Jul 8, 2020), all patients in both groups had been discharged from Renmin hospital per the following discharge criteria: abatement of fever for more than 3 days, with improvement of chest radiographic evidence and viral clearance in respiratory samples from upper respiratory tract (negative twice in a row, sampling interval ≥24 h). The pregnant women required a little longer hospital stay than the non-pregnant group without statistical significance (13.0 days [IQR 9.0, 24.0] vs 9.0 days [IQR 8.0, 15.8], P = 0.062).