Enlarge / A patient with COVID-19 in Germany undergoes a lung function test at the Pulmonology Center of the Hufeland Clinic.
According to a study released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in five adults in the United States who has recovered from COVID-19 may end up developing a long-term disease related to the infection. viral.
Post-COVID conditions include heart, lung, kidney, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological, and mental health conditions. Overall, COVID survivors were nearly twice as likely to develop respiratory and lung conditions, including pulmonary embolism, compared with uninfected controls. The most common post-COVID conditions were respiratory conditions and musculoskeletal pain.
Among COVID survivors, people 18 to 64 years of age were more likely than older survivors to develop cardiac arrhythmia and musculoskeletal pain. Risks for survivors aged 65 and over were higher for kidney failure, blood clots, cerebrovascular disease, muscle disorders, neurological conditions, and mental health conditions.
In the older age group, “post-COVID conditions affecting the nervous system are of particular concern because these conditions can lead to early entry into support services or the investment of additional resources in care,” they wrote. the authors. And for the 18-64 age group, post-COVID conditions could “especially affect a patient’s ability to contribute to the workforce and could have economic consequences for survivors and their dependents.”
With more than 83 million cases of COVID-19 reported in the United States, and the actual number of infections probably significantly higher, the findings mean that millions could develop long-term symptoms, requiring additional care and resources. “Therefore, the implementation of COVID-19 prevention strategies, as well as the routine assessment of post-COVID conditions among people surviving COVID-19, is critical to reducing the incidence and impact. of post-COVID conditions, especially among adults ≥65 years, ”the authors conclude.
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Study design
For the study, the authors extracted electronic health records from an unidentified national database containing information on 63.4 million adult patients in the 50 states. CDC researchers identified 353,164 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 2020 and November 2021. They then matched each patient with COVID-19 in a ratio of one to five with 1,640,776 control patients who had visited a center. during the same month as COVID-19. -Diagnosis of 19 patients but not diagnosed in the study time period. All survivors and controls were monitored for at least one month and up to one year.
Patients with a history of any of the 26 conditions previously related to COVID-19 were excluded from the study.
Overall, 38.2% of COVID-19 survivors developed a post-COVID condition, compared with 16% of uninfected controls. In the 18-64 age group, 35.4% of survivors developed post-COVID disease, compared with 14.6% of controls. In the 65-year-old or older group, 45.4% of survivors developed post-COVID disease, compared with 18.5% of controls.
The difference in absolute risk between the percentage of survivors of COVID and controls who developed post-COVID disease was 20.8 percentage points for those aged 18 to 64 years, and 26.9 percentage points for those with 65 years or older. Based on these calculations, the CDC estimates that one in five adults aged 18 to 64 and one in four adults aged 65 or older developed at least one post-COVID condition.
The study has several limitations, such as using only electronic health records from a software source, creating the possibility that the results may not be generalizable across the United States. Nor did it take into account different variants of SARS-CoV-2 and some demographic details, such as geographic location. And because it is based on electronic health records, it can be biased toward those seeking more care.
However, the authors note that their findings are “consistent with those of several large studies that indicated that post-COVID incident conditions occur in 20-30 percent of patients,” they write. And in general, they conclude, “these findings may increase awareness of post-COVID conditions and improve post-acute care and management of patients after illness.”