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Preprint: Recovered not restored: Long-term health consequences after mild COVID-19 in non-hospitalized patients, 2021, Augustin et al

Discussion in 'Long Covid research' started by Andy, Mar 30, 2021.

  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

    Messages:
    21,810
    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    Abstract

    Background While the leading symptoms during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are acute and the majority of patients fully recover, a significant fraction of patients now increasingly experience long-term health consequences. However, most data available focus on health-related events after severe infection and hospitalization. We present a longitudinal, prospective analysis of health consequences in patients who initially presented with no or minor symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Hence we focus on mild COVID-19 in non-hospitalized patients.

    Methods We included 958 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in this study. Patients were observed for seven months from April 6th to December 2nd 2020 for long-term symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. We identified anosmia, ageusia, fatigue or shortness of breath as most common, persisting symptoms at month 4 and 7 and summarized presence of such long-term health consequences as post-COVID syndrome (PCS). Predictors of long-term symptoms were assessed using an uni- and multivariable logistic regression model.

    Findings We observed 442 and 353 patients over four and seven months after symptom onset, respectively. Four months post SARS-CoV-2 infection, 8.6% (38/442) of patients presented with shortness of breath, 12.4% (55/442) with anosmia, 11.1% (49/442) with ageusia and 9.7% (43/442) with fatigue. At least one of these characteristic symptoms was present in 27.8% (123/442) and 34.8% (123/353) at month 4 and 7 post-infection, respectively. This corresponds to 12.8% patients with long-lasting symptoms relative to the initial total cohort (123/958). A lower baseline level of SARS-CoV-2 IgG, anosmia and diarrhea during acute COVID-19 were associated with higher risk to develop long-term symptoms.

    Interpretation The on-going presence of either shortness of breath, anosmia, ageusia or fatigue as long-lasting symptoms even in non-hospitalized patients was observed at four and seven months post-infection and summarized as post-COVID syndrome (PCS). The continued assessment of patients with PCS will become a major task to define and mitigate the socioeconomic and medical long-term effects of COVID-19.

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.11.21253207v1.full-text
     
    Wyva, spinoza577 and Milo like this.
  2. Sasha

    Sasha Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,769
    Location:
    UK
    That's a terrible title. I hope this idea that recovery isn't the same as restoration isn't going to gain traction. This is the rubbish that the PACE authors tried to pull, that allowed them to claim that patients had recovered when they hadn't.
     
    Michelle, alktipping, Milo and 4 others like this.
  3. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    13,274
    Location:
    London, UK
    I have only seen the abstract but it seems to miss the point. What would be interesting enough to justify naming a syndrome (PCS) would be if these features either all went together (or mostly) or were absent. A syndrome is a concept that is supposed to identify several symptoms of some common process. All they seem to have done here is record that a minority of people have the or that problem. Maybe post covid ageusia has nothing to do with post-covid shortness of breath - why should it? If it did it would be fascinating but the abstract does not say that.
     
    Michelle, alktipping, Wyva and 6 others like this.

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