Lung damage may potentially persist one year after COVID-19 pneumonia, according to a new imaging analysis published Tuesday in the journal Radiology.
Numerous studies have tracked the novel coronavirus’ more immediate impact on patients’ health, but long-term data is lacking. Austrian researchers sought to better understand the ramifications, analyzing chest scans from 91 subjects.
One year after the initial case, 54% of COVID recoverees still had lung irregularities present on medical images, authors wrote March 29.
“The observed chest CT abnormalities from our study are indicative of damaged lung tissue,” study co-author Anna Luger, MD, from the Department of Radiology at Innsbruck Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria, said in a statement. “However, it is currently unclear if they represent persistent scarring, and whether they regress over time or lead to pulmonary fibrosis.”
Out of the 49 patients (average age of 59) with lingering issues, 4% had received outpatient treatment only, 51% in a general hospital ward and 45% received care in the ICU. Imaging abnormalities decreased in subsequent visits, though 63% of study subjects did not show further improvement after six months. Factors including male gender, critical COVID-19 severity and age over 60 were tied to persistent lung abnormalities at the one-year mark.
“Our results emphasize early and longitudinal monitoring of COVID-19 participants,” Luger and colleagues concluded. “Unfortunately, there is still an urgent need for further studies focusing on histological and clinical correlations within the first three months after COVID-19 to identify participants at risk for developing CT abnormalities and who would benefit from early tailored therapeutic concepts.”
Read more in the Radiological Society of North America’s flagship journal, including a corresponding editorial.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.