Antifungal Therapy in the Management of Fungal Secondary Infections in COVID-19 Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objectives: The prevalence of fungal secondary infections among COVID-19 patients and efficacy of antifungal therapy used in such patients is still unknown. Hence, we conducted this study to find the prevalence of fungal secondary infections among COVID-19 patients and patient outcomes in terms of recovery or all-cause mortality following antifungal therapy (AFT) in such patients.

Methods: We performed a comprehensive literature search in PubMed®, Scopus®, Web of Sciences™, The Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrial.gov, MedRxiv.org, bioRxiv.org, and Google scholar to identify the literature that used antifungal therapy for the management fungal secondary infections in COVID-19 patients. We included case reports, case series, prospective & retrospective studies, and clinical trials. Mantel Haenszel random-effect model was used for estimating pooled risk ratio for required outcomes.

Results: A total of 33 case reports, 3 case series, and 21 cohort studies were selected for final data extraction and analysis. The prevalence of fungal secondary infections among COVID-19 patients was 28.2%. Azoles were the most commonly (65.1%) prescribed AFT. Study shows that high survival frequency among patients using AFT, received combination AFT and AFT used for >28 days. The meta-analysis showed, no significant difference in all-cause mortality between patients who received AFT and without AFT (p = 0.17), between types of AFT (p = 0.85) and the duration of AFT (p = 0.67).

Conclusion: The prevalence of fungal secondary infections among COVID-19 patients was 28.2%. The survival frequency was high among patients who used AFT for fungal secondary infections, received combination AFT and AFT used for >28 days. However, meta-analysis results found that all-cause mortality in COVID-19 patients with fungal secondary infections is not significantly associated with type and duration of AFT, mostly due to presence of confounding factors such as small number of events, delay in diagnosis of fungal secondary infections, presence of other co-infections and multiple comorbidities.