{"id":5946,"date":"2022-12-16T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-16T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5946"},"modified":"2022-12-16T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T06:00:00","slug":"long-covid-linked-with-corneal-damage-increased-dendritic-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/?p=5946","title":{"rendered":"Long COVID Linked With Corneal Damage, Increased Dendritic Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Authors:  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com\/author\/mary-stroka\/\">Mary Stroka<\/a>&nbsp; September 1st, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patients with long COVID-19 have corneal small nerve fiber damage and increased dendritic cells (DCs), investigators found in a study published in&nbsp;<em>British Journal of Ophthalmology<\/em>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An estimated 80% of patients who recover from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infectiousdiseaseadvisor.com\/home\/topics\/covid19\/updated-acog-covid19-vaccine-recommendations-for-obstetric-gynecologic-obgyn-care\/\">COVID-19<\/a>&nbsp;continue to have at least 1 symptom, sign, or abnormal laboratory parameter, beyond 2 weeks after initial diagnosis and at least 10% will go on to develop long COVID.&nbsp; The researchers used corneal confocal microscopy (CCM) to identify whether small nerve fiber damage is a biomarker of long COVID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study included 40 patients who had contracted COVID 1 to 6 months previously and 30 control individuals in the study. They reviewed the COVID-19 patients\u2019 blood test results and identified persisting symptoms at 4- and 12-weeks after diagnosis using the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) long COVID, Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) and Fibromyalgia (FM-Q) questionnaires. The researchers used CCM to compare subbasal corneal nerve morphology and DC density in patients with and without long COVID. They manually quantified&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ophthalmologyadvisor.com\/topics\/cornea-ocular-surface\/corneal-nerve-fiber-damage-identified-in-patients-with-long-covid\/\">corneal nerve fiber<\/a>&nbsp;density (CNFD), corneal nerve branch density (CNBD), corneal nerve fiber length (CNFL), and DC density.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 55% of COVID patients who had neurological symptoms at 4 weeks following diagnosis tended to have lower CNFD (mean difference -4.85 (1.88);&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.032), CNBD (mean difference -14.62;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.020), and CNFL (mean difference -3.35;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.012) compared with the control individuals. They had increased total (median 35.1 vs 12.7) cells\/mm<sup>2<\/sup>;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.046) and mature (median 7.3 vs 0 cells\/mm<sup>2<\/sup>;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.003) DC densities compared with the control individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patients without neurological symptoms had higher total median 53.5 vs 12.7 cells\/mm<sup>2<\/sup>;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.003), mature (median 7.3 vs 0 cells\/mm<sup>2<\/sup>;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.010) and immature (median 33.5 vs 12.7) cells\/mm<sup>2<\/sup>;&nbsp;<em>P&nbsp;<\/em>=.007) DC densities, compared with control individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authors: Mary Stroka&nbsp; September 1st, 2021 Patients with long COVID-19 have corneal small nerve fiber damage and increased dendritic cells (DCs), investigators found in a study published in&nbsp;British Journal of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[765,161,289,290,1,634],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cornea","category-eyesight","category-long-haul-disease","category-long-term-effects","category-uncategorized","category-vision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}