Open Forum Infect Dis . COVID-Specific Long-term Sequelae in Comparison to Common Viral Respiratory Infections: An Analysis of 17 487 Infected Adult Patients

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Open Forum Infect Dis


. 2022 Dec 21;10(1):ofac683.
doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac683. eCollection 2023 Jan.
COVID-Specific Long-term Sequelae in Comparison to Common Viral Respiratory Infections: An Analysis of 17 487 Infected Adult Patients


William I Baskett ¹ , Adnan I Qureshi ² , Daniel Shyu ³ , Jane M Armer ⁴ , Chi-Ren Shyu ^{1 5 6}



Affiliations

• PMID: 36686632
• PMCID: PMC9846186
• DOI: 10.1093/ofid/ofac683

Abstract

Background: A better understanding of long-term health effects after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has become one of the health care priorities in the current pandemic. We analyzed a large and diverse patient cohort to study health effects related to SARS-CoV-2 infection occurring >1 month postinfection.
Methods: We analyzed 17 487 patients who received diagnoses for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a total of 122 health care facilities in the United States before April 14, 2022. Patients were propensity score-matched with patients diagnosed with the common cold, influenza, or viral pneumonia from March 1, 2020, to April 1, 2021. For each outcome, SARS-CoV-2 was compared with a generic viral respiratory infection (VRI) by predicting diagnoses in the period between 30 and 365 days postinfection. Both coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and VRI patients were propensity score-matched with patients with no record of COVID-19 or VRI, and the same methodology was applied. Diagnoses where COVID-19 infection was a significant positive predictor in both COVID-19 vs VRI and COVID-19 vs control comparisons were considered COVID-19-specific effects.
Results: Compared with common VRIs, SARS-CoV-2 was associated with diagnoses of palpitations, hair loss, fatigue, chest pain, dyspnea, joint pain, and obesity in the postinfectious period.
Conclusions: We identify that some diagnoses commonly described as "long COVID" do not appear significantly more frequent post-COVID-19 infection compared with other common VRIs. We also identify sequelae that are specifically associated with a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; electronic health records; long COVID; post-COVID syndrome.