Little is known about long-term sequelae of COVID-19.
To describe the consequences at 4 months in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.
In a prospective uncontrolled cohort study, survivors of COVID-19 ...who had been hospitalized in a university hospital in France between March 1 and May 29, 2020, underwent a telephone assessment 4 months after discharge, between July 15 and September 18, 2020. Patients with relevant symptoms and all patients hospitalized in an intensive care unit (ICU) were invited for further assessment at an ambulatory care visit.
Survival of hospitalization for COVID-19.
Respiratory, cognitive, and functional symptoms were assessed by telephone with the Q3PC cognitive screening questionnaire and a checklist of symptoms. At the ambulatory care visit, patients underwent pulmonary function tests, lung computed tomographic scan, psychometric and cognitive tests (including the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey and 20-item Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory), and, for patients who had been hospitalized in the ICU or reported ongoing symptoms, echocardiography.
Among 834 eligible patients, 478 were evaluated by telephone (mean age, 61 years SD, 16 years; 201 men, 277 women). During the telephone interview, 244 patients (51%) declared at least 1 symptom that did not exist before COVID-19: fatigue in 31%, cognitive symptoms in 21%, and new-onset dyspnea in 16%. There was further evaluation in 177 patients (37%), including 97 of 142 former ICU patients. The median 20-item Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory score (n = 130) was 4.5 (interquartile range, 3.0-5.0) for reduced motivation and 3.7 (interquartile range, 3.0-4.5) for mental fatigue (possible range, 1 best to 5 worst). The median 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey score (n = 145) was 25 (interquartile range, 25.0-75.0) for the subscale "role limited owing to physical problems" (possible range, 0 best to 100 worst). Computed tomographic lung-scan abnormalities were found in 108 of 171 patients (63%), mainly subtle ground-glass opacities. Fibrotic lesions were observed in 33 of 171 patients (19%), involving less than 25% of parenchyma in all but 1 patient. Fibrotic lesions were observed in 19 of 49 survivors (39%) with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Among 94 former ICU patients, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic symptoms were observed in 23%, 18%, and 7%, respectively. The left ventricular ejection fraction was less than 50% in 8 of 83 ICU patients (10%). New-onset chronic kidney disease was observed in 2 ICU patients. Serology was positive in 172 of 177 outpatients (97%).
Four months after hospitalization for COVID-19, a cohort of patients frequently reported symptoms not previously present, and lung-scan abnormalities were common among those who were tested. These findings are limited by the absence of a control group and of pre-COVID assessments in this cohort. Further research is needed to understand longer-term outcomes and whether these findings reflect associations with the disease.
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is a frequently used tool in the differential diagnosis of dyspnoea. Ventilatory inefficiency, defined as high minute ventilation (
V′
E
) relative to carbon ...dioxide output (
V′
CO
2
), is a hallmark characteristic of pulmonary vascular diseases, which contributes to exercise intolerance and disability in these patients. The mechanisms of ventilatory inefficiency are multiple and include high physiologic dead space, abnormal chemosensitivity and an altered carbon dioxide (CO
2
) set-point. A normal
V′
E
/
V′
CO
2
makes a pulmonary vascular disease such as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) or chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) unlikely. The finding of high
V′
E
/V′
CO
2
without an alternative explanation should prompt further diagnostic testing to exclude PAH or CTEPH, particularly in patients with risk factors, such as prior venous thromboembolism, systemic sclerosis or a family history of PAH. In patients with established PAH or CTEPH, the
V′
E
/
V′
CO
2
may improve with interventions and is a prognostic marker. However, further studies are needed to clarify the added value of assessing ventilatory inefficiency in the longitudinal follow-up of patients.
We report on an artificially intelligent nanoarray based on molecularly modified gold nanoparticles and a random network of single-walled carbon nanotubes for noninvasive diagnosis and classification ...of a number of diseases from exhaled breath. The performance of this artificially intelligent nanoarray was clinically assessed on breath samples collected from 1404 subjects having one of 17 different disease conditions included in the study or having no evidence of any disease (healthy controls). Blind experiments showed that 86% accuracy could be achieved with the artificially intelligent nanoarray, allowing both detection and discrimination between the different disease conditions examined. Analysis of the artificially intelligent nanoarray also showed that each disease has its own unique breathprint, and that the presence of one disease would not screen out others. Cluster analysis showed a reasonable classification power of diseases from the same categories. The effect of confounding clinical and environmental factors on the performance of the nanoarray did not significantly alter the obtained results. The diagnosis and classification power of the nanoarray was also validated by an independent analytical technique, i.e., gas chromatography linked with mass spectrometry. This analysis found that 13 exhaled chemical species, called volatile organic compounds, are associated with certain diseases, and the composition of this assembly of volatile organic compounds differs from one disease to another. Overall, these findings could contribute to one of the most important criteria for successful health intervention in the modern era, viz. easy-to-use, inexpensive (affordable), and miniaturized tools that could also be used for personalized screening, diagnosis, and follow-up of a number of diseases, which can clearly be extended by further development.
Hemodynamic variables such as cardiac index and right atrial pressure have consistently been associated with survival in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) at the time of diagnosis. Recent studies ...have suggested that pulmonary arterial compliance may also predict prognosis in PAH. The prognostic importance of hemodynamic values achieved after treatment initiation is less well established.
Our objective was to evaluate the prognostic importance of clinical and hemodynamic variables during follow-up, including pulmonary arterial compliance, after initial management in PAH. We evaluated incident patients with idiopathic, drug- and toxin-induced, or heritable PAH enrolled in the French pulmonary hypertension registry between 2006 and 2016 who had a follow-up right-sided heart catheterization (RHC). The primary outcome was death or lung transplantation. We used stepwise Cox regression and the Kaplan-Meier method to assess variables obtained at baseline and at first follow-up RHC.
Of 981 patients, a primary outcome occurred in 331 patients (33.7%) over a median follow-up duration of 2.8 years (interquartile range, 1.1-4.6 years). In a multivariable model considering only baseline variables, no hemodynamic variables independently predicted prognosis. Median time to first follow-up RHC was 4.6 months (interquartile range, 3.7-7.8 months). At first follow-up RHC (n=763), New York Heart Association functional class, 6-minute walk distance, stroke volume index (SVI), and right atrial pressure were independently associated with death or lung transplantation, adjusted for age, sex, and type of PAH. Pulmonary arterial compliance did not independently predict outcomes at baseline or during follow-up. The adjusted hazard ratio for SVI was 1.28 (95% confidence interval, 1.11-1.49;
<0.01) per 10-mL/m
decrease and for right atrial pressure was 1.05 (95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.09;
<0.01) per 1-mm Hg increase. Among patients who had 2 (n=355) or 3 (n=193) low-risk prognostic features at follow-up, including a cardiac index ≥2.5 L·min
·m
, 6-minute walk distance >440 m, and New York Heart Association class I or II functional class, lower SVI was still associated with higher rates of death or lung transplantation (
<0.01).
SVI and right atrial pressure were the hemodynamic variables that were independently associated with death or lung transplantation at first follow-up RHC after initial PAH treatment. These findings suggest that the SVI could be a more appropriate treatment target than cardiac index in PAH.
The previous definition of exercise pulmonary hypertension (PH) with a mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) >30 mmHg was abandoned because healthy individuals can exceed this threshold at high ...cardiac output (CO). We hypothesised that incorporating assessment of the pressure-flow relationship using the mPAP/CO ratio, i.e. total pulmonary resistance (TPR), might enhance the accuracy of diagnosing an abnormal exercise haemodynamic response.Exercise haemodynamics were evaluated in 169 consecutive subjects with normal resting mPAP ≤20 mmHg. Subjects were classified into controls without heart or lung disease (n=68) versus patients with pulmonary vascular disease (PVD) (n=49) and left heart disease (LHD) (n=52).TPR and mPAP at maximal exercise produced diagnostic accuracy with area under the receiver operating curve of 0.99 and 0.95, respectively, for discriminating controls versus patients with PVD and LHD. The old criterion of mPAP >30 mmHg had sensitivity of 0.98 but specificity of 0.77. Combining maximal mPAP >30 mmHg and TPR >3 mmHg·min·L(-1) retained sensitivity at 0.93 but improved specificity to 1.0. The accuracy of the combined criteria was high across different age groups, sex, body mass index and diagnosis (PVD or LHD).Combining mPAP >30 mmHg and TPR >3 mmHg·min·L(-1) is superior to mPAP >30 mmHg alone for defining a pathological haemodynamic response of the pulmonary circulation during exercise.
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