Abstract: Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews 15 (2021) 149e157 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Diabetes & Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research & Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dsx Clinical characteristics and short-term prognosis of in-patients with diabetes and COVID-19: A retrospective study from an academic center in Belgium Laura Orioli a, d, *, Thomas Servais a, Leïla Belkhir b, Pierre-François Laterre c, Jean-Paul Thissen a, d, Bernard Vandeleene a, Dominique Maiter a, d, Jean C. Yombi b, 1, Michel P. Hermans a, 1 a Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Avenue Hippocrate, 10, 1200, Brussels, Belgium Department of Internal Medicine, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Avenue Hippocrate, 10, 1200, Brussels, Belgium c Department of Acute Medicine, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Avenue Hippocrate, 10, 1200, Brussels, Belgium d Department of Endocrinology, Diabetology and Nutrition, IREC, UCLouvain, Avenue Hippocrate 55, 1200, Brussels, Belgium b a r t i c l e i n f o s t r u c t u r e d a b s t r a c t Article history: Received 1 December 2020 Received in revised form 5 December 2020 Accepted 9 December 2020 Background and aims: We describe the characteristics and short-term prognosis of in-patients with diabetes and COVID-19 admitted to a Belgian academic care center. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data on admission from patients with known or newlydiagnosed diabetes and confirmed COVID-19. First, survivors were compared to non-survivors to study the predictive factors of in-hospital death in patients with diabetes. Secondly, diabetic patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia were matched for age and sex with non-diabetic patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, to study the prognosis and predictive factors of in-hospital death related to diabetes. Results: Seventy-three diabetic patients were included. Mean age was 69 (±14) years. Women accounted for 52%. Most patients had type 2 diabetes (89.0%), long-term complications of hyperglycemia (59.1%), and hypertension (80.8%). The case-fatality rate (CFR) was 15%. Non-survivors had more severe pneumonia based on imaging (p 0.029) and were less often treated with metformin (p 0.036). In patients with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, CFR was 15.6% in diabetic (n ¼ 64) and 25.0% in non-diabetic patients (n ¼ 128), the difference being non-significant (p 0.194). Predictive factors of in-hospital death were elevated white blood cells count (HR 9.4, CI 1.50e58.8, p 0.016) and severe pneumonia on imaging (HR 25.0, CI 1.34 e466, p 0.031) in diabetic patients, and cognitive impairment (HR 5.80, CI 1.61e20.9, p 0.007) and cardiovascular disease (HR 5.63, CI 1.54e20.6, p 0.009) in non-diabetic patients. Conclusion: In this monocentric cohort from Belgium, diabetic in-patients with COVID-19 had mostly type 2 diabetes, prevalent hyperglycemia-related vascular complications and comorbidities including hypertension. In this cohort, the CFR was not statistically different between patients with and without diabetes. © 2020 Diabetes India. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Diabetes COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 Obesity Pneumonia