• Luigi Palmieri, Nicola Vanacore, Chiara Donfrancesco, Cinzia Lo Noce, Marco Canevelli, Ornella Punzo, Valeria Raparelli, Patrizio Pezzotti, Flavia Riccardo, Antonio Bella, Massimo Fabiani, Fortunato Paolo D'Ancona, Luana Vaianella, Dorina Tiple, Elisa Colaizzo, Katie Palmer, Giovanni Rezza, Andrea Piccioli, Silvio Brusaferro, Graziano Onder, and Italian National Institute of Health COVID-19 Mortality Group.
• Department of Cardiovascular, Endocrine-metabolic Diseases and Aging, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.
• J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 2020 Sep 16; 75 (9): 1796-1800.

BackgroundAim of the present study is to describe characteristics of COVID-19-related deaths and to compare the clinical phenotype and course of COVID-19-related deaths occurring in adults (<65 years) and older adults (≥65 years).MethodMedical charts of 3,032 patients dying with COVID-19 in Italy (368 aged < 65 years and 2,664 aged ≥65 years) were revised to extract information on demographics, preexisting comorbidities, and in-hospital complications leading to death.ResultsOlder adults (≥65 years) presented with a higher number of comorbidities compared to those aged <65 years (3.3 ± 1.9 vs 2.5 ± 1.8, p < .001). Prevalence of ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure, stroke, hypertension, dementia, COPD, and chronic renal failure was higher in older patients (≥65 years), while obesity, chronic liver disease, and HIV infection were more common in younger adults (<65 years); 10.9% of younger patients (<65 years) had no comorbidities, compared to 3.2% of older patients (≥65 years). The younger adults had a higher rate of non-respiratory complications than older patients, including acute renal failure (30.0% vs 20.6%), acute cardiac injury (13.5% vs 10.3%), and superinfections (30.9% vs 9.8%).ConclusionsIndividuals dying with COVID-19 present with high levels of comorbidities, irrespective of age group, but a small proportion of deaths occur in healthy adults with no preexisting conditions. Non-respiratory complications are common, suggesting that the treatment of respiratory conditions needs to be combined with strategies to prevent and mitigate the effects of non-respiratory complications.© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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