Scientists have proposed a longer Covid definition based on key symptoms in larger studies.
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Financial support from scientists federal government The definition of is proposed. Long covid Based on symptoms identified in a large study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The definition is based on 12. Symptoms That most people isolate after six months or more of long-term Covid from those who haven’t had it. Corona Virus.
Since the early days of the pandemic, many people have suffered, sometimes immeasurably. Debilitating symptoms which persist long after infection with CoVID-19.
Patients adopted the name of prolonged covid. Scientists call this condition post-acute sequelae, or PASC.
But there is still no systematic, universally accepted definition of prolonged Covid for research, and which could serve as the basis for future tools to diagnose the condition.
“It’s really trying to come up with a solid, replicable specific definition for prolonged Covid,” said study author and NYU Grossman School of Medicine professor Dr. Leora Horwitz.
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, evaluated nearly 10,000 participants at 85 hospitals, health centers and community centers in 33 states.
More than 8,600 patients with Covid were compared with more than 1,100 patients who did not have the virus.
The research is part of NIH’s $1.15 billion large-scale RECOVER research initiative aimed at defining chronic COVID, understanding what causes the condition and developing treatments. is an acronym for RECOVER. Researching COVID to enhance recovery..
Key symptoms
Symptoms most prominent in participants with long-term Covid included loss of smell and taste, post-exercise malaise, chronic cough, brain fog, thirst, palpitations, chest pain, fatigue, changes in libido, Dizziness, gastrointestinal problems, abnormal movements and hair loss.
The scientists assigned points based on how well each symptom distinguished participants with prolonged Covid from those who did not catch the virus.
A participant with 12 points or more is considered likely to have prolonged covid.
Loss of smell and taste and post-exercise anxiety, for example, were more prominent than other symptoms, and had scores of 8 and 7 points, respectively. Palpitations and dizziness, which are characteristic of prolonged covid, but are also common symptoms in many other conditions, scored 2 points and 1 point, respectively.
Future clinical use
Horowitz, the study’s author, said the proposed definition of prolonged Covid could help doctors develop a way to diagnose patients.
But Horwitz said the definition presented in the study is preliminary, still needs to be refined and is not yet ready for clinical use.
In the absence of a universally accepted definition, many long-term Covid patients have struggled to receive appropriate health care, especially early in the pandemic, because some symptoms are common to other conditions, which can make diagnosis difficult.
There are no tests that can diagnose chronic Covid based on markers in the blood. Scientists participating in RECOVER have long been trying to understand the underlying biology that causes Covid, which could potentially lead to such tests in the future.
Horowitz said the proposed definition could help create a rubric for diagnosing patients with chronic illnesses like lupus. There is no single blood test that can diagnose lupus, so doctors also rely on a combination of common symptoms to determine whether a patient has the disease.
Horowitz said the goal is to provide researchers with a more systematic definition that can be used to answer questions about risk factors and post-Covid reinfection and virus variants, among other issues. How long is the time between
During the study, biological samples from patients who developed long-term covid could be used to investigate what causes the condition and potentially guide the search for treatments and enrollment in future clinical trials. Help may be available.
Long covid is more common before omicron.
The study also found that prolonged covid was more common among people infected before the Omicron variant arrived in the US in December 2021.
About 17% of patients who enrolled more than 30 days after infection during Omicron developed prolonged covid. In contrast, about 35 percent of those infected before the Omicron era developed prolonged covid.
But patients who had a re-infection during Omicron were more likely to develop prolonged covid than those who reported an infection while the variant was growing. About 21 percent of those with recurrent infections enrolled after 30 days developed prolonged Covid, compared with 16 percent of those who had contracted Covid once.
People who were fully vaccinated were less likely to develop prolonged Covid regardless of when they were infected.
About 16% of participants who were up to date on their shots who were infected during Omicron developed prolonged Covid, compared with 22% who did not get their shots. Before omicron, 31% of people who were up to date on their shots got an infection, compared with 37% of those who were not vaccinated.