Treating patients with severe influenza with oseltamivir in the first 2 days after hospital admission was associated with a lower in-hospital mortality risk, earlier discharge, and lower readmission rate compared with supportive care, new data indicated. The additional evidence supports current guideline recommendations to treat all people hospitalized with influenza with an antiviral agent, regardless of how long they have been ill.
The study, led by Anthony D. Bai, MD, assistant professor of infectious diseases at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, was published on June 10 in JAMA Network Open.
Reduced Mortality Risk
Each year, influenza causes 12,200 hospitalizations and 3500 deaths in Canada. It causes between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 to 61,000 deaths in the United States. And despite guidelines in both countries that recommend treatment for all entering the hospital with influenza, clinical practice varies widely, Bai told Medscape Medical News. The researchers’ study found that in Ontario, 30% of clinicians were not treating this population with oseltamivir.
Researchers examined data from the General Medicine Inpatient Initiative database, which includes internal medicine and intensive care unit (ICU) patients admitted to participating hospitals in Ontario. Data included demographics, diagnoses, interventions, discharge, readmission, medication orders, and bloodwork results.
The cohort study included 11,073 patients (average age, 72.6 years). Researchers found an adjusted risk reduction of 1.8% for in-hospital mortality when oseltamivir was given, compared with supportive care alone.The median length of stay was 4.4 days and 4.9 days in