Persistent capillary rarefication in long COVID syndrome.
Angiogenesis
; 2022 Aug 11.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2234027
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Recent studies have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a multisystemic vascular disease. Up to 60% of the patients suffer from long-term sequelae and persistent symptoms even 6 months after the initial infection.METHODS:
This prospective, observational study included 58 participants, 27 of whom were long COVID patients with persistent symptoms > 12 weeks after recovery from PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Fifteen healthy volunteers and a historical cohort of critically ill COVID-19 patients (n = 16) served as controls. All participants underwent sublingual videomicroscopy using sidestream dark field imaging. A newly developed version of Glycocheck™ software was used to quantify vascular density, perfused boundary region (PBR-an inverse variable of endothelial glycocalyx dimensions), red blood cell velocity (VRBC) and the microvascular health score (MVHS™) in sublingual microvessels with diameters 4-25 µm. MEASUREMENTS AND MAINRESULTS:
Although dimensions of the glycocalyx were comparable to those of healthy controls, a µm-precise analysis showed a significant decrease of vascular density, that exclusively affected very small capillaries (D5 - 45.16%; D6 - 35.60%; D7 - 22.79%). Plotting VRBC of capillaries and feed vessels showed that the number of capillaries perfused in long COVID patients was comparable to that of critically ill COVID-19 patients and did not respond adequately to local variations of tissue metabolic demand. MVHS was markedly reduced in the long COVID cohort (healthy 3.87 vs. long COVID 2.72 points; p = 0.002).CONCLUSIONS:
Our current data strongly suggest that COVID-19 leaves a persistent capillary rarefication even 18 months after infection. Whether, to what extent, and when the observed damage might be reversible remains unclear.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Long Covid
Language:
English
Journal subject:
Hematology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S10456-022-09850-9
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