ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To explore how patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases (CIRDs) coped with their disease during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify possible predictive factors of SARS-CoV-2 infection in this population. METHODS: Patients followed in a single rheumatology department in France or registered on the Spondy+ platform, a secure e-health platform for spondyloarthritis patients, were invited to complete a questionnaire focused on their experiences around COVID19 symptoms, testing and medications access during the lockdown period. Descriptive statistics were used to report questionnaire's results. Factors associated with COVID-19 or with treatment discontinuation were assessed by logistic regression. RESULTS: We obtained 655 answers from the 2,081 contacted patients: 474 with spondyloarthritis, 129 with rheumatoid arthritis and 52 with psoriatic arthritis. The population was predominantly female (61.8%) with a mean age of 51.0±13.4 years. Incidence of COVID-19 was 6.9% (95%CI: 5.1-9.2%), including 12 confirmed and 33 highly suspicious cases. No death was observed and five patients needed to be hospitalized. Factors independently associated with an increased risk of infection were SARS-CoV-2 exposure, younger age and non-smoking. More than 30% of the patients suspended or decreased the dosage of one of their drugs during the lockdown period. This was followed in 63.4% of them by increased disease activity. Modifications were mostly motivated by fear of contagion (79.3%). CONCLUSION: We did not observe any increase of incidence or severity of COVID-19 in patients suffering of the 3 most common CIRDs. This survey also adds evidence of the safety of anti-rheumatic drugs use regarding COVID-19.
Subject(s)
Antirheumatic Agents/therapeutic use , COVID-19/epidemiology , Glucocorticoids/therapeutic use , Pandemics , Rheumatic Diseases/drug therapy , SARS-CoV-2 , Treatment Adherence and Compliance , Comorbidity , Female , France/epidemiology , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Prognosis , Retrospective Studies , Rheumatic Diseases/epidemiology , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
As coronavirus pandemic continues to spread over the world, physicians have to be aware of atypical features of COVID-19 pneumonia. We report the case of a 78-year-old man presenting with pseudo-tumoral focal lesion of the left lung which switched shortly to severe and diffuse COVID-19 induced pneumonia. Nuclear medicine physicians and radiologists should be careful of some misleading hypermetabolic aspects mostly in asymptomatic patients.