What tests are currently suggested for diagnosing whether I have Long COVID?

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  • Опубліковано 31 гру 2024
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    TRANSCRIPT
    Several recent studies have pointed to biomarkers that may help doctors accurately diagnose people living with Long COVID. There is no single test that can 100% diagnose PASC, although recent research points to a variety of potential testing methods, from full-body scans to eye exams. And recent research may now be able to confirm that Long COVID is indeed a biological disease.1-5
    A September 2023 study published in “Nature” was widely heralded as a step toward a blood test to confirm Long COVID.3 It found that Long COVID patients tended to have low levels of the stress hormone cortisol and their blood tests often suggested that virus particles lingered in their bodies, either remnants of the virus that causes COVID-19, or other viruses that had been dormant in their body after prior infections and then became reactivated because of their COVID-19 infection. Specifically, the study found that Long COVID appears to reactivate latent viruses including Epstein-Barr and mononucleosis. The activity of the immune system cells called T cells and B cells, which help fight off germs, was found to be "irregular" in Long COVID patients. People with Long COVID had abnormal T cell activity and low levels of the hormone cortisol. When a machine-learning model was trained to pick up on all of those potential signals together, it was able to distinguish the blood of Long COVID patients from the blood of people without the condition with 96% accuracy.
    Another recent study suggests certain biomarkers may identify long COVID with accuracy approaching 80%.4 This study suggests that the elevation of certain immune system proteins are a commonality in Long COVID patients and identifying them may be an accurate way to diagnose the condition. In an analysis of the blood plasma of study participants, researchers found elevated levels of four proteins in particular: Ba, iC3b, C5a, and TC. In the case of Long COVID, these proteins appear to remain chronically elevated, and predicted the presence of Long COVID with 78.5% accuracy.
    Researchers also point to elevated inflammation as a connecting factor that causes various systems in the body to go haywire. Testing for these types of biomarkers, as well as others such as serotonin, may help doctors separate patients who have Long COVID from patients who have similar symptoms caused by other conditions.5
    Finally Quest Diagnostics has recommendations for a Basic Panel of tests, and an Expanded Panel of Tests to diagnose if you have Long COVID-related symptoms.6
    REFERENCES
    1. Peluso, M. J., Ryder, D., Flavell, R., Wang, Y., Levi, J., LaFranchi, B. H., Deveau, T. M., Buck, A. M., Munter, S. E., Asare, K. A., Aslam, M., Koch, W., Szabo, G., Hoh, R., Deswal, M., Rodriguez, A., Buitrago, M., Tai, V., Shrestha, U., Lu, S., … Henrich, T. J. (2023). Multimodal Molecular Imaging Reveals Tissue-Based T Cell Activation and Viral RNA Persistence for Up to 2 Years Following COVID-19. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences, 2023.07.27.23293177. doi.org/10.110...
    www.ncbi.nlm.n...
    2. Bitirgen G, Korkmaz C, Zamani A, et al. Corneal confocal microscopy identifies corneal nerve fibre loss and increased dendritic cells in patients with long COVID. British Journal of Ophthalmology 2022;106:1635-1641.
    bjo.bmj.com/co...

    3. Klein, J., Wood, J., Jaycox, J.R. et al. Distinguishing features of long COVID identified through immune profiling. Nature 623, 139-148 (2023). doi.org/10.103...
    www.nature.com...
    4. Kirsten Baillie, Helen E Davies, Samuel B K Keat, Kristin Ladell, Kelly L Miners, Samantha A Jones, Ermioni Mellou, Erik J M Toonen, David A Price, B Paul Morgan, Wioleta M Zelek. Complement dysregulation is a predictive and therapeutically amenable feature of long COVID. doi: doi.org/10.110...
    5. “Conversations on Health Care, NYT’s Diagnosis Columnist Dr. Lisa Sanders’ Views on Long COVID Affirmed by New Research”. Originally broadcast on September 28, 2023. • NYT’s Diagnosis Column...
    6. Quest Diagnostics: Powering Affordable Care for patients with long-haul COVID. Published 2022.
    provider.quest... Retrieved February 28, 2024.

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