COVID-19 Elevates Risk for Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases

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SARS-CoV-2 infection correlated with a heightened risk of autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases (AIRDs), persisting for up to 12 months post-infection ().

These findings suggest that care strategies for patients who survive COVID-19 should pay close attention to manifestations of AIRD, particularly after severe illness. The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Unexplored Impact of COVID-19 Vaccination and Modifiable Factors on Long-Term Complications

However, these findings are based entirely on comparisons between groups infected with SARS-CoV-2 and those that are not, which might be biased by differences in health-seeking behavior and inherent risk factors within the groups. In addition, studies have not explored the effect of vaccination and other modifiable factors on prevention of long term COVID-19 complications.

‘A higher risk of autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases was identified with increased severity of acute COVID-19, even in individuals who had been vaccinated. #COVID #rheumatic’

Researchers from Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea used data from two national, large-scale, general population-based cohort studies in Korea and Japan to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on long-term risk for incident AIRD over various follow-up periods. The data comprised of more than 10 million Korean and 12 million Japanese adults, including those with COVID-19 between January 2020 and December 2021, matched to patients with influenza infection and to uninfected control patients.

The researchers assessed the data for onset of AIRD at 1, 6, and 12 months after COVID-19 or influenza infection, or the respective matched index date of uninfected control patients. They found increased risk for incident AIRD up to 12 months after COVID-19 diagnosis compared with the other two groups. Greater severity of acute COVID-19 was associated with higher risk for incident AIRD.

Reference:

1. Long-Term Autoimmune Inflammatory Rheumatic Outcomes of COVID-19 - (https:www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-1831)

Source: Eurekalert