March 23, 2023 – This month I cared for a patient who had recently contracted COVID-19 and was complaining of chest pain. After ruling out the potential of a heart attack, pulmonary embolism, or pneumonia, I concluded that this was a residual symptom of COVID.
Chest pain is a standard ongoing symptom of COVID, but because little is understood about these post-acute symptoms, I used to be unable to teach my patient on how long this symptom would last, why he was having it, or what the foundation cause was.
This is the state of data about Long COVID. This information vacuum is the rationale why we're having a lot difficulty and doctors are in a difficult position in diagnosing and treating this disease.
New studies on Long COVID (technically generally known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19) are published almost every day [PASC]) and its social impact. These studies often calculate various statistics on the prevalence of this disease, its duration and its extent.
However, a lot of these studies don't provide a whole picture – and this is particularly not the case once they are interpreted by the lay press and changed into clickbait.
Long COVID is real, but there are numerous connections which might be neglected of many discussions about it. Deciphering the disease and placing it within the larger context is a very important tool for learning more about it.
And that is crucial for doctors who treat patients with symptoms.
Long-COVID: What is it?
The CDC considers Long COVID to be an umbrella term for “health consequences” that occur no less than 4 weeks after an acute infection. This condition might be considered a “failure to return to usual health status after COVID,” in keeping with the CDC.
The commonest symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, exercise intolerance, “brain fog,” chest pain, cough, and lack of taste/smell. Note that symptoms would not have to be severe enough to interfere with activities of every day living, they simply should be present.
There isn't any diagnostic test or criteria to verify this diagnosis. Therefore, the symptoms and definitions above are vague and make it difficult to estimate the prevalence of the disease. Therefore, estimates vary, starting from 5% to 30% depending on the study.
In fact, routine blood tests or imaging studies are unlikely to detect abnormalities in these patients. However, some individuals have met the diagnostic criteria and been diagnosed with: postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). POTS is a condition commonly seen in patients with long COVID-19 that causes problems with the autonomic nervous system's regulation of heart rate through the transition from sitting to standing, which ends up in changes in blood pressure.
How to tell apart Long COVID from other diseases
When evaluating an individual with Long COVID, essential medical conditions have to be ruled out. First, any undiagnosed medical conditions or changes in an underlying disease that would explain the symptoms have to be considered and ruled out.
Second, it is crucial to grasp that individuals who were in intensive care or hospital with COVID shouldn't be lumped along with individuals who had uncomplicated COVID and didn't require medical care.
One reason for this can be a disease generally known as Post-ICU syndrome or PICS. PICS can occur in anyone admitted to the intensive care unit for any reason and is probably going the results of many aspects commonly seen in intensive care patients, including immobility, severe sleep/wake cycle disturbances, use of sedatives and paralytics, and demanding illness.
These people cannot expect a fast recovery and, depending on the style of disease, they could have health problems for years. They may even have increased mortality.
The same applies to a lesser extent to those that are hospitalized and whose Post-hospital syndrome puts them at the next risk of developing persistent symptoms.
To be clear, this doesn't mean that Long COVID doesn't occur in patients with more severe disease, just that it have to be distinguished from those conditions. It is tougher within the early stages of defining the disease when these categories are all lumped together. The CDC definition and plenty of studies fail to make this essential distinction and will confuse Long COVID with PICS and post-hospital syndrome.
Control groups in studies are crucial
Another essential tool for understanding this disease is to conduct control group studies that directly compare individuals who have had COVID with individuals who haven't had COVID.
Such a study design allows researchers to isolate the results of COVID and separate them from other aspects which will play a task in symptoms. When researchers conduct studies with control groups, the prevalence of the disease is at all times lower than without.
Actually, a remarkable study showed a comparable prevalence of long-COVID symptoms in individuals who had COVID and folks who believed they'd had COVID.
Identification of risk aspects
Several studies have suggested that certain individuals could also be overrepresented amongst Long COVID patients. Risk factors The risk groups for Long COVID include women, older people, Pre-existing psychiatric illness (depression/anxiety) and folks with obesity.
Over and beyond Factors Related to Long COVID are the reactivation of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), abnormal Cortisol Values and high viral load of the coronavirus during an acute infection.
These aspects haven't been proven to play a causal role, but they're clues to an underlying cause. However, it isn't clear whether Long COVID is monolithic – there could also be subtypes or multiple conditions underlying the symptoms.
Finally, Long COVID also appears to be only related to infections through the Non-omicron variants of COVID.
Role of antivirals and vaccines
The usage of Vaccinations Vaccination has been shown to scale back the chance of long-COVID disease but doesn't completely eliminate it. This is one reason why low-risk individuals profit from COVID vaccination. Some have also reported therapeutic advantages of vaccination in long-COVID patients.
There are also indications that Antivirals may reduce the chance of long COVID, presumably by influencing viral load kinetics. As newer antivirals are developed, it's going to be essential to think in regards to the role of antivirals not only in stopping severe disease, but in addition as a mechanism to scale back the chance of developing persistent symptoms.
Other anti-inflammatory drugs and other medicines may be helpful, similar to Metformin.
Long Covid and other infectious diseases
The discovery of Long COVID has led many to wonder if it's also present in other infectious diseases. Those in my infectious disease specialty have routinely been referred patients with persistent symptoms after treatment. Lyme disease or after recovering from infectious mononucleosis.
People with flu can cough for weeks after recovery, and even patients with Ebola can have persistent symptoms (although the severity of most Ebola causes makes inclusion difficult).
Some experts suspect that a person's immune response may influence the event of post-acute symptoms. The proven fact that so many individuals contracted COVID at the identical time brought into sharper focus a rare phenomenon that has at all times occurred in lots of forms of infections.
What’s next: A research agenda
Before concrete statements might be made about Long COVID, fundamental scientific questions must first be answered.
Without an understanding of the biological basis of this disease, it's inconceivable to diagnose patients, develop treatment regimens, or provide a prognosis (although symptoms appear to subside over time).
It was recently said that unraveling the intricacies of this disease will result in many recent insights into how the immune system works – an exciting prospect in and of itself that may advance each science and human health.
The next time doctors see a patient like my doctor with this information, they shall be significantly better capable of explain why they're experiencing these symptoms, provide treatment recommendations, and supply a prognosis.
Amesh A. Adalja, MD, is an infectious disease, critical care, and emergency medicine specialist in Pittsburgh and a senior scholar on the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.