Abstract
Background: Concerning COVID-19, levels of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the said host receptor of the virus responsible for COVID-19 (intense acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; SARS-CoV-2), were located to be elevated in patients with COPD. But, early character COVID-19 studies have not always pronounced a drastically better fee of severe disease in COPD sufferers. Aim: This work aims to determine the prevalence of COPD concerning the severity of COVID-19 infection. Materials and Methods: A systematic search was performed over different medical databases to identify Internal Medicine studies, which studied the outcome of the COPD group versus the Non-COPD group of COVID-19 patients. Using the meta-analysis process, either with fixed or random-effects models, we conducted a meta-analysis on the prevalence of severe cases as a primary outcome, and on mortality rate as a secondary outcome. Results: Eleven studies were identified involving 146666 patients, 2764 in the COPD group, and 143902 in the Non-COPD group. The meta-analysis process revealed that the pooled prevalence of severity among COVID-19 patients was (28.7%), and there is a significant increase in COVID-19 severe cases in the COPD group (OR=3.46, P=0.042). The pooled mortality rate among COVID-19 patients was (16.7%), and there is a highly significant increase in mortality in COPD group (OR=3.75, P<0.001). Conclusion: To conclude, COVID-19 is an emerging disease all over the world and spreading at an unpredicted rate, resulting in significant influences on global economies and public health. The present review assessed the risk factors related to the outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infections which were included old age, male gender, and obesity, associated co-morbidities in COPD, which increase the mortality and severity of COVID-19.