Abstract Introduction Pulmonary hypertension evaluated by echocardiography and ROX index in older patients with COVID-19 could be linked to worse outcomes. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort of adult patients with COVID-19. The main objective was to evaluate pulmonary hypertension as an echocardiographic finding and its association with hard outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection. In the inferential statistical analysis, the OR with confidence intervals greater than 95% was used as a measure of association. Qualitative variables were evaluated using the Chi square test or Fisher’s exact test. In quantitative variables, the Student’s T test, or Mann–Whitney test, was used. Results 306 individuals with COVID-19 infection were included; the majority of these were men (78% vs. 22% women). Patients who died had lower ROX values at 2 hours compared to survivors (4,5 with a SD of 3,6–5,6, vs. 5,8 with a SD of 4,7–6,1, respectively). This trend was maintained at 12 hours (4,9 with a SD of 3,8–6,0 for deceased patients vs. 7,8 with a SD of 5,2–8,7 for survivors). For the ROX index at 2 hours, an OR adjusted for age and gender of 8,5 with a CI of 2,0–91,4 was found, and at 12 hours, an OR of 17,6 with a CI of 2,8–93,6 was found. Low values of the ROX index were associated with pulmonary hypertension (p = 0.048) and higher mortality (p = 0.037). Conclusions In patients with COVID-19, the presence of pulmonary hypertension estimated by ecocardiography and the ROX index is associated with worse outcomes, including a higher rate of comorbidities and mortality in patients over 70 years of age. Prospective studies with a more representative population sample are required to validate the results found here.
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