The pandemic’s toll: 55 long-term side effects of COVID-19
More than 20 months after doctors identified the first human cases of COVID-19, the disease’s impact continues to be felt all over the world. As patients recover from the disease and try to return to their everyday lives, what kind of long-term side effects—cardiovascular and otherwise—should they anticipate?
The team behind a new systematic review and meta-analysis in Scientific Reports explored this very question, reviewing evidence from 15 different studies and listing every long-term effect they could find.
“Symptoms, signs, or abnormal clinical parameters persisting two or more weeks after COVID-19 onset that do not return to a healthy baseline can potentially be considered long-term effects of the disease,” wrote lead author Sandra Lopez-Leon, MD, PhD, an epidemiologist with Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and colleagues. “Although such alteration is mainly reported in severe and critical disease survivors, the lasting effects also occur in individuals with a mild infection who did not require hospitalization.”
The group examined data from nearly 49,000 adult patients with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. Approximately 80% of all infected patients developed at least one long-term side effect related to COVID-19. The most common long-term side effects were fatigue (58%), headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair lost (25%) and dyspnea (24%). While 11% of patients developed an elevated resting heart rate, 11% also developed heart palpitations. Cases of diabetes (4%), stroke (3%), new hypertension (1%) and myocarditis (1%) were also reported among the patient population.
“There is a need for more information about prospective studies to better evaluate the natural course of COVID-19 infection and define the long- COVID-19 syndrome,” the authors wrote. “From the clinical point of view, physicians should be aware of the symptoms, signs, and biomarkers present in patients previously affected by COVID-19 to promptly assess, identify and halt long COVID-19 progression, minimize the risk of chronic effects help reestablish pre-COVID-19 health. Management of all these effects requires further understanding to design individualized, dynamic cross-sectoral interventions in post-COVID-19 clinics with multiple specialties, including graded exercise, physical therapy, frequent medical evaluations and cognitive behavioral therapy when required.”
Click here to read the full study.
The full list of 55 long-term side effects is here.
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Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.