Initial COVID-19 severity may not up later respiratory complications

If you are a COVID-19 survivor, you can heave a sigh of relief as a new study finds that initial severity of the disease may not be associated with later respiratory complications.

The COVID-19 virus affects the human body in many different ways. However, not much is know about how exactly your lung health suffers following infection. Also, researchers, till now, have been unable to say if the severity of initial infection can cause respiratory complications later on in life. But now, there is good news from Irish researchers.

If you are a COVID-19 survivor and worry about its severity in later life then you can heave a sigh of slight relief as a study from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland has shown that initial severity of the virus may not be associated with later respiratory health complications. The study, published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society journal, examined the recovery of lung function and overall wellness in individuals who had varying degrees of COVID-19 severity.

Lung health following infection

According to the researchers, fatigue, ill-health and breathlessness were all common following COVID-19. However, these symptoms appeared to be unrelated to the severity of initial infection or any single measurement at the time of an outpatient appointment. Little is known about lung health following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and whether later respiratory problems, fatigue and ill health are associated with the disease's initial severity, according to researchers.

Initial infection severity not linked to abnormal findings

For the study, the team looked at a number of measures of recovery for 153 patients who were followed in an outpatient clinic a median of 75 days after their COVID-19 diagnoses. The team graded the patients' initial infection severity as: (1) not requiring admission; (2) requiring hospital admission, or (3) requiring ICU care. The study team also looked at participants' chest x-rays to detect persistent infection or significant scarring (fibrosis) and performed CT imaging for patients with abnormal chest x-rays. Bloodwork was done to measure such indicators of disease as C-reactive protein, which increases when there is an inflammation in the body. Statistical analyses were performed.

They were surprised by their findings as they expected a greater number of abnormal chest x-rays. They also expected the measures of ongoing ill-health and abnormal findings to be related to severity of initial infection, which was not the case.

Only 4 per cent patients had significant lung scarring

The authors' findings suggest that COVID-19 does not cause significant fibrosis, with lung scarring seen on CT scans of only 4 per cent of study participants, following x-ray detection of earlier abnormalities in a larger group. The findings are significant because some earlier studies had said that this virus can lead to long term lung damage and recovered patients may suffer from respiratory complications years after recovery.

(With inputs from IANS)