ABSTRACT
The coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic was announced in March 2020 by World Health Organization (WHO). Studies showed that the elderly had higher morbidity and mortality rates. Acute sarcopenia in the elderly with COVID-19 is an overlooked problem. Inflammation, malnutrition, immobilization, a side effect of COVID-19 treatment, depression, and hormonal dysregulation contributed to acute sarcopenia in COVID-19, especially in the elderly. Muscle quantity can be assessed with different techniques such as imaging or anthropometric measurements in diagnosing sarcopenia. Imaging such as CT scan was widely used in multiple studies. Still, anthropometric measurements are more fit in developing countries because they are widely available, safe, do not require special skills, and fit in low-resources facilities. Muscle strength can be assessed with grip strength. Acute sarcopenia was associated with immune dysregulation and cytokine storm, length of stay and readmission, and ICU admission and mechanical ventilation. These will contribute to high mortality in sarcopenic elderly with COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Many studies identified the risk factors and prognostic factors related to in-hospital COVID-19 mortality using sophisticated laboratory tests. Cost and the availability of supporting blood tests may be problematic in resource-limited settings. This multicenter cohort study was conducted to assess the factors associated with mortality of COVID-19 patients aged 18 years and older, based on history taking, physical examination, and simple blood tests to be used in resource-limited settings. METHODS: The study was conducted between July 2020 and January 2021 in five COVID-19 referral hospitals in Indonesia. Among 1048 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 160 (15%) died during hospitalization. RESULTS: Multivariate analysis showed eight predictors of in-hospital mortality, namely increased age, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, fatigue, dyspnea, altered mental status, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) >= 5.8, and severe-critical condition. This scoring system had an Area-under-the-curve (AUC) of 84.7%. With cut-off score of 6, the sensitivity was 76.3% and the specificity was 78.2%. CONCLUSION: The result of this practical prognostic scoring system may be a guide to decision making of physicians and help in the education of family members related to the possible outcome.
ABSTRACT
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Case fatality rate has been on the rise among older adults. Muscle loss is a consequence of several chronic diseases (chronic sarcopenia) and recent theory also suggested that acute sarcopenia may caused by acute significant stressor such as an acute illness, surgery, infections, trauma or burns including COVID-19 infection leading to further muscle loss in elderly. Cytokine storm, the hallmark of COVID-19 pathogenesis will induce various pro-inflammatory cytokine such as IL-1 and IL-6 causing acute sarcopenia by activating negative regulators like NF-kappaB, atrogin-1, MURF-1. Long standing chronic inflammation also known as inflammaging along with acute inflammation during COVID-19 in elderly will cause reticulum endoplasmic and mitochondria stress activating caspase and finally increase both cytosolic and nuclear levels of AIF and EndoG to induce acute sarcopenia. Several precipitating factors shared same molecular pathway like physical inactivity and hormonal dysregulation which act through IGF-1-AKT-mTOR pathway. Physical inactivity during COVID-19 infection also induced myostatin and Atrogin-1/ MaFbx/ MuRF pathway. This review provides recent research advances dealing with molecular pathway modulating muscle mass in acute sarcopenia during COVID-19 infection.
ABSTRACT
One of the main causes of death in COVID-19 is the dysregulation of the host's immune system which leads to cytokine storm, a potentially fatal systemic inflammatory syndrome. Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that is produced in response to infections and tissue injuries and is believed to play a pivotal role in the event of a cytokine storm, as signified by its increase in the process. Considering the role of IL-6 as a pro-inflammatory cytokine in the process of cytokine storm in COVID-19, perceiving IL-6 as a therapeutic target could prove to be promising. Tocilizumab is a monoclonal antibody that competitively inhibits the binding of IL-6 to its receptor (IL-6R). The use of IL-6R blocker is recommended for severe COVID-19 patients in the latest therapeutic guideline published by the World Health Organization (WHO), but the timing of the administration has not been specified. While previous studies about the use of tocilizumab in COVID-19 patients have shown various results, these studies do not emphasize on plasma IL-6 levels when deciding the time of tocilizumab administration. In this case series, we present three patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 infections that receive tocilizumab as an adjunct to the standard of care therapy. This case series introduces the novel idea that the timely use of tocilizumab as signified by plasma IL-6 levels in moderate to severe COVID-19 patients could potentially improve overall clinical condition and increase survival rate.
ABSTRACT
It has been a year since the Indonesian government announced its first COVID-19 identified in Jakarta. Since then, there have been more than 900,000 cases in Indonesia with case fatality rate (CFR) of 2.9%. The number of new cases per day is now ranging from 9,000 cases to almost 13,000 cases. Not only in Indonesia, but the number of new cases along with the mortality rate in other countries, such as Malaysia, Japan, United States, and Europe region also increased dramatically. COVID-19 vaccines are being investigated and the world hopes that vaccines will be the answer to tackle this pandemic. Is it really so? Immunization is an effort to induce immunity in individuals to prevent a disease or the complication related to the diseases that may be catastrophic. Immunization can be divided into passive, which is by giving certain type of antibody and active, which means that either we get the disease, or we get the antigen injected into our body.Having prior vaccination or past COVID-19 does not mean that someone is totally immune to COVID-19 as a recent study suggested that the antibody related to COVID-19 past infection is significantly decreasing after 3 months post-infection. Compliance to implementation of health protocol remained the most crucial strategy during this pandemic.