Ocular manifestations of COVID-19 infection: A retrospective study (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) swept the world rapidly to become the world’s first major public health problem. SARS-CoV-2’s receptors are expressed in multiple tissues throughout the body and can cause multiple organ damage when engaged by the virus. We collected and classified the clinical ocular manifestations of individuals infected with the SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic and analyzed them to gain an understanding of the ocular manifestations of COVID-19. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study to collect the demographic characteristics, the SARS-CoV-2 infection signs and symptoms, and specifically, the ocular manifestations of the individuals with COVID-19. We used SPSS for all statistical analyses, to calculate the incidence of COVID-19 ocular manifestations and to analyze the possible associations between those and sex, age, and clinical manifestations of COVID-19. Results: Of the 452 records reviewed, 134 didn’t pass any tests to confirm COVID-19, so this group did not participate in the analysis. Of the remaining 318 reviewed records, 147 (46.2%, n=318) belonged to men and 171 (53.8%, n=318) to women. The most common systemic symptoms were cough, expectoration, chills, fever, and fatigue. In addition, we found women to be more likely than men to experience cough, expectoration, nasal congestion, runny nose, sore throat, hoarseness, low back pain, taste changes, and arthralgia. The overall incidence ofCOVID-19 eye manifestations was 26.7% (n=318) and the most common symptoms were eyeball pain, decreased vision , eye itching or foreign body sensation, and photophobia or tearing. Women were more likely than men to experience eyeball pain and orbital pain. We found sex and the prolonged screen time usage to be associated with COVID-19 ocular manifestations, whereas age, BMI, history of eye disease, basic diseases, types of COVID-19, vaccination status, and vaccination time were not associated with the presence of ocular manifestations. Conclusion: COVID-19 ocular manifestations are common, and the main ones include eyeball pain and decreased vision. The variables associated with eye discomfort are sex and the  prolonged screen time usage. Other variables such as age, BMI, underlying diseases, and type of COVID-19 were not associated with the occurrence of ocular symptoms in COVID-19.