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CHEST 2022 Nashville USA Annual Conference of American College of Chest Physicians (16-19th Oct. 2022)
India
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New Delhi, October 18, 2022:
This Annual Conference of American College of Chest Physicians is being held after a gap of two years due to COVID pandemic. Experts from all over the world in the field of Pulmonary, Critical care and Sleep Medicine gather and share their expertise and views.
A session on LONG COVID:IT CAN TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY discussed long term effects of Covid.
Following are salient features:
- There has been more that 61 crore confirmed cases of Covid Globally and 65 lac deaths
- 19% of patients have lingering symptoms for long time
- These patients have symptoms such as fatigue, loss of smell and taste, loss of appetite, fullness of stomach, bowel disturbances( Diarrhoea) body aches, depression, hair loss, sleep disturbances, `brain fog’ and chest pain
- The main organ affected is Covid which leads to pneumonia and lung fibrosis leading to prolonged cough and breathless ness which is incapacitating and some patient continue to require oxygen support
- There is decline lung function which continues for long time (up to 10 months as per the study presented)
According to Dr G C Khilnani, “While threat of Covid has largely receded and we are getting, if at all, mild cases which are often undiagnosed. However, we are still getting patients who are having long term complications of this menace of which lung fibrosis is most important”.
About half the patients who have had moderate or severe covid have CT Chest abnormalities. Besides fatigue and sleep disturbances continue for more that an year, It is important to recognize syndrome of LONG COVID and manage it appropriately.
Lung function tests are very help full and CT scans should be done judiciously (because of hazard of radiation hazard). It is also true that we have very little proven therapy for lung fibrosis and all the drugs have unproven benefit. That underscores the importance of prevention in the form of vaccination.
There is complacency for vaccination due to reduced threat of severe disease. However, threat of `variants’ is always there. Since vaccination is proven to be safe and prevents severity of disease due to all variants, that benefit should be availed by us all, says Dr Khilnani.
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Dr G C Khilnani is the Chairman, PSRI Institute of Pulmonary, Critical care and Sleep Medicine Formerly Professor and Head of Dept of Pulmonary, Critical care and Sleep Medicine. AIIMS, New Delhi
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