There were a total of 4,661 unique patients. Urological symptoms were found to be increased in COVID- 19 patients, reaching 21,1% of them. The largest proportion of patients come from the first wave (1,492; 32.0%), followed by the second wave (1,062; 22.8%), third (903; 19.4%), fourth (391; 8.4%), fifth (246; 5.3%) and sixth wave (567; 12.2%). Of the 4,661 unique patients, 2,483 (53.3%) were men and 2,178 (46.7%) were women. The mean age of the patients was 69.1 (SD 17.2). Only 74 (1.5%) patients were foreigners.
The median age was statistically significant higher for those patients with urological diseases (Table 1). The gender proportion was very close. Additionally, this group presented a higher percentage of comorbidities (78.9% vs 57.5%) being the all comorbidities higher and statistical different for the group with urological diseases (excluding smoker and former smoker comorbidity), and for the urological history (except for urolithiasis).
The frequency of the different urological diagnosis varied between the waves (Table 2). We analyzed the distribution of demographic variables (sex and age), length of stay and comorbidities in each of the waves in order to explain the frequency change of the different urological diagnosis (Table 2). Male gender was higher in all waves except in the 6th wave, however this difference was not significant (p>0.05). For age, we found that the median age was significantly higher for the 6th wave against the rest (P≤0.001). The median length stay was higher in the 2nd,3rd, 4th waves. For the comorbidities, we found that in the 6th wave the percentage was significantly lower to the other waves, followed to the 1st wave. Between these comorbidities we found that smokers and former smokers were more frequent in the 4thth wave (32.2%) and in the 6th wave the lowest frequency (15.2%). Mortality was higher in the 1st wave, reaching up to 17.4% of COVID-19 cases. The urological history was significantly lower in the 6th than in the other waves.
The AKF diagnosis showed a significant difference among the waves, with a higher presence in the 5th (16.7%) and 3rd wave (13.3%), and lower presence in the 6th (8.5%) and 2nd (9.3%) waves.
UTI also showed a significant difference along the waves, being more frequent in the 3rd (12.8%) and 5th (12.6 %) waves, and lower presence in the 6th (6.4 %) and 1st (7.0 %) waves. Finally, hematuria and ED also showed a varied significantly, being more frequent in the 5th (1.6%) and 3rd wave (0.5%), respectively.
The difference among gender in each wave showed that for males the diagnosis AKF was significantly higher for the 1st (14.2% vs 9.4%) and 2nd waves (11.3% vs 7.1%), and hematuria diagnosis in the 3rd wave (1.7% vs 0.0%). On the other hand, the presence of UI diagnosis and UTI was higher for females, being significantly higher for 1st (urinary incontinence diagnosis: 3.1% vs 1.0%) and 2nd wave (UI diagnosis: 3.0% vs 1.1%; UTI: 16.1% vs 6.3%).