Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 6:9:1067082.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.1067082. eCollection 2022.

Clinical and biochemical characteristics of people experiencing post-coronavirus disease 2019-related symptoms: A prospective follow-up investigation

Assim A Alfadda  1   2   3 , Mohamed Rafiullah  1 , Mohammad Alkhowaiter  3 , Naif Alotaibi  4 , Musa Alzahrani  3   5 , Khalifa Binkhamis  6 , Khalid Siddiqui  1 , Amira Youssef  1 , Haifa Altalhi  7 , Ibrahim Almaghlouth  8 , Mohammed Alarifi  9 , Saleh Albanyan  3 , Mohammed F Alosaimi  10 , Arthur Isnani  2 , Shaik Sarfaraz Nawaz  1 , Khalid Alayed  3   5
Affiliations

Clinical and biochemical characteristics of people experiencing post-coronavirus disease 2019-related symptoms: A prospective follow-up investigation

Assim A Alfadda et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Background: Post-acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) syndrome, also known as long COVID, is a prolonged illness after the acute phase of COVID-19. Hospitalized patients were known to have persisting symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnea, and anosmia. There is a need to describe the characteristics of individuals with post-COVID-19 symptoms in comparison to the baseline characteristics.

Purpose: To investigate the clinical and biochemical characteristics of people who recovered from COVID-19 after 6 months of discharge from the hospital.

Methods: This was a prospective follow-up investigation of hospitalized and discharged COVID-19 patients. Adult patients admitted to King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and discharged were recruited. The baseline demographic information, comorbidities, vital signs and symptoms, laboratory parameters, COVID-19 therapy, and outcomes were collected from the medical records. Blood samples were collected for cytokines estimation. A detailed interview about signs and symptoms was undertaken during the follow-up.

Results: Half of the followed-up people reported experiencing at least one of the COVID-19-related symptoms. The mean blood pressure was found higher in follow-up. People with the symptoms were characterized by low lymphocyte count, lower serum calcium levels, and hyperglycemia compared to people without any post-COVID-19 symptoms. Cytokines IL-8, VEGF, and MCP-1 were higher in people with the most frequent symptoms.

Conclusion: People with post-COVID-19 symptoms were characterized by lower lymphocyte count, lower serum calcium levels, and hyperglycemia compared to people without symptoms. Individuals with the most frequent post-COVID-19 symptoms had higher baseline pro-inflammatory, chemotactic, and angiogenic cytokines.

Keywords: COVID-19; PASC; SARS-CoV-2; long COVID; post-COVID-19.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flow chart for the patient selection process.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Distribution of comorbidities among patients reporting at least one post-COVID-19 symptom vs. no symptoms at follow-up.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Coronavirus disease 2019 treatments provided to the patients according to the symptoms at the follow-up (at least one post-COVID-19 symptom vs. no symptoms).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Guan W, Ni Z, Hu Y, Liang W, Ou C, He J, et al. Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China. N Engl J Med. (2020) 382:1708–20. 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.03.041 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Davis H, Assaf G, McCorkell L, Wei H, Low R, Re’em Y, et al. Characterizing long COVID in an international cohort: 7 months of symptoms and their impact. eClinicalMedicine. (2021) 38:101019. 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101019 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nasserie T, Hittle M, Goodman S. Assessment of the frequency and variety of persistent symptoms among patients with COVID-19: A systematic review. JAMA Netw open. (2021) 4:e2111417. 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.11417 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sudre C, Murray B, Varsavsky T, Graham M, Penfold R, Bowyer R, et al. Attributes and predictors of long COVID. Nat Med. (2021) 27:626–31. 10.1038/s41591-021-01292-y - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ji G, Chen C, Zhou M, Wen W, Wang C, Tang J, et al. Post-COVID-19 Fatigue among COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: A meta-analysis. J Infect. (2022) 84:722–46. 10.1016/j.jinf.2022.01.030 - DOI - PMC - PubMed