SARS-COV2: AUTOIMMUNITY AND CLINICAL OUTCOMES.
- Juan Luis Valdivieso Shephard, Spain
Abstract
Background and Aims
In December 2019 a novel outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus infection emerged. The SARS-CoV-2 or the Covid-19 was declared as a pandemic and is characterized by fever, dry cough, myalgia and or extreme fatigue. Some patients are asymptomatic, but in a few cases it may present as a disease characterized by immune hyperactivation, which increases the severity and mortality in these patients. It has been suggested that SARS-CoV-2 could act as a triggering factor for the development of a rapid autoimmune and / or autoinflammatory dysregulation. Our aim is to correlate the development of autoimmunity with the severity of the desease
Methods
Our patient cohort was obtained from hospital records, selecting only those patients admitted to hospital where inflammatory markers and autoimmunity tests were studied.
Results
We studied a total of 60 patients, in whom we analyzed and correlated the following variables: age, sex, CRP, ferritin, d-dimer, LDH, IL6, use of tocilizumab, ICU admission and days of hospitalization.
Conclusions
The association between autoimmunity and viral infections has been previously described, but the hypothesis that this phenomenon may modify the clinical course requires particular attention. So far, studies correlating the occurrence of autoimmunity and the clinical outcome in the short and long-term are scarce. Further studies are needed to explore the importance of this phenomenon in this new scenario.