Effects of (Combined) Chinese Medicine on the Risk of Death From COVID-19: A Retrospective Data Analysis Based on 4567 Patients

Background The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic is still ongoing, but the optimal treatment remains unclear. China adopted a series of measures, including widespread screening, strict quarantine and early treatment, combining western medicine with Chinese medicine, leading to rapid control of its spread. Nevertheless, the effects of ( combined ) Chinese medicine in reducing the toll of COVID-19 lack proof from statistics. Objective We conducted a retrospective data analysis to determine whether ( combined ) Chinese medicine is able to affect patient outcomes and to decrease the risk of death in COVID-19 patients. Methods The data were acquired by outputting the formatting information from the HIS system and then extracting and recording it in the database for complete cases. The demographics, disease onset, treatment, survival/death and all of the clinical classifications, groups and definitions were verified by specialists in the clinic, along with the research methodology and statistics, before conducting the statistical analysis. The characteristics of the cohort and the clinical symptoms and signs, prescriptions and outcomes were described and analyzed by the mean ± SD, median, interquartile range and composition ratio. Analysis of variance was used for comparisons between the measurement data sets; otherwise, the rank sum test was used. Counting data were compared between groups using the chi square test and Fisher’s exact test. Tendency matching was adopted to make the general data balance between groups. A Cox proportional hazard model was used to compare the risk of death among the different groups. Results Four centers were included in our study, and a total of 6,076 patients' clinical records were obtained after combining the data. We included 4567 cases for the descriptive statistics, and the crude case fatality rate was 3.0%. Compared with using only western medicine, (combined) Chinese medicine reduced the risk of death from COVID-19 after adjusting for other prognostic risk factors (HR = 0.135, 95% CI (0.088, 0.208)). Multivariate Cox regression also indicated that when applying the clinical classification of severe/critical, age ≥ 65 years old, coronary heart disease or chronic kidney disease and a time from onset to hospital admission of fewer than 14 days, all of these factors increased the risk of death. Conclusion (Combined) Chinese medicine can significantly reduce the risk of death from COVID-19, but the specific strategy/solution, effects and amount need further exploration in future studies.