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Papers of the Week


Papers: 5 Feb 2022 - 11 Feb 2022


Human Studies


2022 Feb 03


Pain

Serological biomarkers of COVID-19 severity at hospital admission are not related to long-term post-COVID pain symptoms in hospitalized COVID-19 survivors.

Authors

Fernández-de-Las-Peñas C, Ryan-Murua P, de-la-Llave-Rincón AI, Gómez-Mayordomo V, Arendt-Nielsen L, Torres-Macho J
Pain. 2022 Feb 03.
PMID: 35121694.

Abstract

This study investigated the association between serological biomarkers at hospital admission with the development of long-term post-COVID pain symptoms in previously hospitalized COVID-19 survivors. A cohort study including patients hospitalised due to COVID-19 in one urban hospital of Madrid (Spain) during the first wave of the outbreak was conducted. Hospitalisation data, clinical data and eleven serological biomarkers were collected at hospital admission. Participants were scheduled for an individual telephone interview after hospital discharge for collecting data about post-COVID pain symptoms. A total of 412 (mean age: 62, SD: 15 years; 46.1% women) were assessed twice, a mean of 6.8 and 13.2 months after discharge. The prevalence of post-COVID pain symptoms was 42.7% (n=176) and 36.2% (n=149) at 6.8 and 13.2 months after hospital discharge. Patients reporting post-COVID pain exhibited a greater number of COVID-19 associated symptoms at hospital admission, more medical comorbidities, higher lymphocyte count, and lower glucose and creatine kinase (CK) levels (all, P<0.01) than those not reporting post-COVID pain. The multivariate analysis revealed that lower CK and glucose levels were significantly associated, but just explaining 6.9% of the variance of suffering post-COVID pain. In conclusion, the association between serological biomarkers associated with COVID-19 severity at hospital admission and the development of post-COVID pain is small. Other factors, e.g., higher number of COVID-19 onset symptoms (higher symptom load) could be more relevant for the development of post-COVID pain. As inflammatory biomarkers were not directly analyzed, they may have stronger predictive strengths for the development of post-COVID pain symptoms.