Months after hospitalization for COVID-19, MRIs reveal multiorgan damage

This study found abnormal MRI results in 20% to 25% of both controls and hospitalized patients, suggesting “a lot of these cardiac abnormalities that were seen in the COVID group must have been there beforehand.” Post–COVID-19 patients with lingering cardiac symptoms might have disorders like heartbeat irregularities that aren’t always visible with MRI, or dysfunction in other organs, he adds. Although it can offer clues to an organ’s health, MRI is an imperfect measure of how a patient is faring after infection. Researchers found no connection between abnormal liver MRIs and symptoms such as gastrointestinal or abdominal problems, for example. Kidney and brain abnormalities failed to predict any patient-reported symptoms. However, lung imaging abnormalities did correlate with reports of coughing and chest tightness, and people who reported severe overall physical and mental impairment were more likely to have multiorgan abnormalities. It’s not possible to decisively attribute the organ damage documented in the study to COVID-19, says Daniela Witten, a biostatistician at the University of Washington. She notes that people in the control group were on average younger and healthier, and may have been less susceptible to organ damage overall. Without pre–COVID-19 MRIs to compare against the post–COVID-19 ones, it ’s impossible to know which abnormalities were present already. And preexisting problems likely would have p...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news