Chronic fatigue syndrome: an emerging sequela in COVID-19 survivors?

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 survivors may report persistent symptoms that resemble myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). We explored (a) ME/CFS-like symptom prevalence and (b) whether axonal, inflammatory, and/or lung changes may contribute to ME/CFS-like symptoms in SARS-CoV-2 survivors through clinical, neuropsychiatric, neuropsychological, lung function assessment, and serum neurofilament light chain, an axonal damage biomarker. ME/CFS-like features were found in 27% of our sample. ME/CFS-like group showed worse sleep quality, fatigue, pain, depressive symptoms, subjective cognitive complaints, Borg baseline dyspnea of the 6-min walking test vs. those without ME/CFS-like symptoms. These preliminary findings raise concern on a possible future ME/CFS-like pandemic in SARS-CoV-2 survivors.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cognition; Fatigue; Functional neurological disorders; Mood alterations; Viral infection.

Fig. 1

Flow diagram of the study and reasons for patients’ exclusion

Fig. 2

Sleep disorders, pain, depression, perceived dyspnea (Borg dyspnea scale at baseline), and fatigue in patients who tested positive (ME/CFS +) and negative (ME/CFS −) to ME/CFS-like symptoms. All the measures were significantly worse in ME/CFS + than ME/CFS − patients (*p < 0.05 for ME/CFS + vs ME/CFS − comparison). Horizontal bars equal 1 S.E.M