Objective:

To describe the casuistry of critically iIl COVID-19 patients treated in the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital del Norte, the first Hospital of the Third Level of Complexity of the city of El Alto and the Departmental Reference Center for La Paz (Bolivia).

Methodology:

Retrospective cross-sectional observational study. All permanent resident patients at very high altitude, admitted in the period 25th March 202025th November 2021 are included. For the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics and the creation of a database were used in the Excel v18 program.

Results:

373 patients were admitted, 212 (57%) men as well as 161 (43%) women. There is a corrected mortality of 48%, the mean stay in the ICU is 18 days, 26 (± 4) in the group of survivors and 11 (± 2) in the group of deceased patients. The mean age of survivors is 47.25 years (± 12 years) and the mean age of deceased is 56.58 years (± 14 years), p 0.004. The most frequently found comorbidity was hypertension in 157 (42%) cases. Only 2 cases had an anti-COVID-19 vaccine.

Discussion:

Corrected mortality is similar to the casuistry reported in the international literature. This tsudy supports the fact that altitude does not affect the evolution of critical COVID-19 patients.

Conclusion:

It is imperative to describe the casuistry concerning our Care Centers. Keywords: COVID-19, intensive care, altitude.

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