Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Multicenter Study
. 2021 Apr;76(4):396-398.
doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-215818. Epub 2020 Nov 10.

'Long-COVID': a cross-sectional study of persisting symptoms, biomarker and imaging abnormalities following hospitalisation for COVID-19

Swapna Mandal  1 , Joseph Barnett  2 , Simon E Brill  1 , Jeremy S Brown  3   4 , Emma K Denneny  4 , Samanjit S Hare  2 , Melissa Heightman  4 , Toby E Hillman  4 , Joseph Jacob  5   6 , Hannah C Jarvis  1 , Marc C I Lipman  1   3 , Sindhu B Naidu  1 , Arjun Nair  6 , Joanna C Porter  3   4 , Gillian S Tomlinson  4   7 , John R Hurst  8   3 ; ARC Study Group
Collaborators, Affiliations
Multicenter Study

'Long-COVID': a cross-sectional study of persisting symptoms, biomarker and imaging abnormalities following hospitalisation for COVID-19

Swapna Mandal et al. Thorax. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Large numbers of people are being discharged from hospital following COVID-19 without assessment of recovery. In 384 patients (mean age 59.9 years; 62% male) followed a median 54 days post discharge, 53% reported persistent breathlessness, 34% cough and 69% fatigue. 14.6% had depression. In those discharged with elevated biomarkers, 30.1% and 9.5% had persistently elevated d-dimer and C reactive protein, respectively. 38% of chest radiographs remained abnormal with 9% deteriorating. Systematic follow-up after hospitalisation with COVID-19 identifies the trajectory of physical and psychological symptom burden, recovery of blood biomarkers and imaging which could be used to inform the need for rehabilitation and/or further investigation.

Keywords: respiratory infection; viral infection.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Patient reported breathlessness (0-10 scale) versus time of follow-up from hospital discharge. Each circle represents an individual patient at follow-up, with interpolation line and 90%CI. A higher score represents more severe breathlessness.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • COVID-19 and what comes after?
    Hopkinson NS, Jenkins G, Hart N. Hopkinson NS, et al. Thorax. 2021 Apr;76(4):324-325. doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-216226. Epub 2021 Feb 15. Thorax. 2021. PMID: 33589513 No abstract available.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Carfì A, Bernabei R, Landi F. for the Gemelli Against COVID-19 Post-Acute Care Study Group. Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19. JAMA. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.12603. Published online July 09 2020. - DOI
    1. Mo X, Jian W, Su Z, et al. Abnormal pulmonary function in COVID-19 patients at time of hospital discharge [published online ahead of print, 2020 May 12] Eur Respir J. 2020;55(6):2001217. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01217-2020. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wei J, Yang H, Lei P, et al. Analysis of thin-section CT in patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after hospital discharge. J Xray Sci Technol. 2020;28(3):383–389. doi: 10.3233/XST-200685. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. British Society of Thoracic Imaging COVID-19 chest x-ray classification. [last accessed August 24th 2020]. Available at: https://www.bsti.org.uk/media/resources/files/BSTI_COVID_CXR_Proforma_v.... .
    1. Iba T, Levy JH, Levi M, Thachil J. Coagulopathy in COVID-19 [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jun 18] J Thromb Haemost. 2020 doi: 10.1111/jth.14975. 10.1111/jth.14975. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types