Treated COVID-19 patients suffer lung damage three months after recovery, study finds

New Delhi, 7-Sep-2020

One of the most common concerns of medical experts all around the world, when it comes to the COVID-19 disease, is the constantly and commonly reported cases of damage to vital organs such as the lungs, even after recovery. Patients have previously reported of long-term heart damage, relapse of symptoms, unexplained pains in their bodies, etc are complications due to the coronavirus infection, even after being discharged from the hospitals where they were treated for the disease. According to a recent report, a study has found that patients who have been treated for COVID-19 and discharged from hospitals, suffer lung damage even three months after recovery.

Here is what the study says
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Researchers at different institutions in Austria's Tyrolean region asked COVID-19 patients who had been admitted to hospital due to the disease for evaluation after six, twelve, and twenty-four weeks from being discharged. While most people's condition was found to be better within six weeks, some patients continued to suffer from breathlessness and coughing much longer. When the first evaluation was conducted, it was found that more than half of the patients had at least one persistent symptom, mostly breathlessness and coughing. CT scans still showed lung damage in 88 per cent of patients. By the time of the next visit, which was after 12 weeks from discharge, symptoms among patients had improved, and lung damage was reduced to 56 per cent. While the third visit, after 24 weeks of being discharged from the hospital is still pending, Dr. Sabina Sahanic, a clinical PhD student at the University Clinic in Innsbruck and part of the team that carried out the study, said: 'The bad news is that people show lung impairment from Covid-19 weeks after discharge,� reported Dailymail. However, she said that the good news is that it seems that the impairment tends to ameliorate over time, which could imply that lungs have a mechanism to repair themselves post the illness.

Study does not find severe COVID-19 linked heart dysfunction post illness
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At the six week visit, which was the first visit after being discharged, echocardiograms showed that 48 patients, which comprised of more than 58 per cent of the total, had dysfunction of the left ventricle of the heart at the point when it was relaxing and dilating. Indicators of heart damage such as blood clots, inflammation, etc were also significantly high. However, these symptoms were observed to have a tendency to improve with time. According to Dr Sahanic, �Fortunately, in the Innsbruck cohort, we did not observe any severe coronavirus-associated heart dysfunction in the post-acute phase.�