April 22, 2021

High-Dimensional Characterization of Post-Acute Sequalae of COVID-19

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Clinical Characteristics and Health Care Setting

Keywords (Tags): sequelae

• COVID-19 patients who survived beyond the first 30 days of illness (n>73,000) had a 1.6-fold increased risk of death compared those who did not have COVID-19 and were not hospitalized (n>4.9 million), according to analysis of databases from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The cohort study also examined 6-month incident sequelae and found that COVID-19 survivors had 33.2-fold excess health burden spanning multiple organ systems including pulmonary, neurocognitive, and gastrointestinal disorders. The authors also compared patients hospitalized with COVID-19 to those hospitalized with seasonal influenza and determined that COVID-19 survivors had increased risk of death (HR=1.5; 1.3-1.8) and a higher burden of health care disorders spanning multiple organ systems.

Al-Aly et al. (Apr 22, 2021). High-Dimensional Characterization of Post-Acute Sequalae of COVID-19. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03553-9