Symptomatology and imaging findings in early post-Covid period: A comparative study in older vs younger patients

While there are substantial reports on the acute phase of Covid-19, the data on post-Covid phase are limited.

To report the data on older post-Covid patients comparatively with the young adults.

Retrospective, single-center study in post-Covid outpatient clinic. Clinical characteristics, laboratory examination, chest imagings were examined.

665 patients were included (median age, 46; 53 %, male; 10.5 %, aged ≥65). We assessed patients at 47th day (median) after recovery. 43.6 % were suffering from one or more ongoing symptomatology. The prevalence of symptoms or physical examination findings were not different between older and younger groups. Most prevalent ongoing symptom was dyspnea (14.3 % and 11.8 % older and younger group, respectively). Most common laboratory abnormality was high pro-BNP (12.2 %, in both age groups). Despite there was no differences regarding imaging findings at acute-phase, there were higher rates of control imaging abnormalities in older subgroup (35.7 % vs 19.4 %; p = 0.006). On admission 28.4 % younger patients had normal imaging, of whom 12.4 % developed some form of sequela; however, in older group, 40.0 % had normal imaging, of whom 25.0 % developed sequela.

Complaints related to Covid-19 persisted in about half of the patients at about 1.5 months after Covid. More than 1/3 older post-Covid patients displayed pulmonary sequela in the post-acute period which was more prevalent than those in younger adults. Hence, compared to the younger counterparts, the clinicians should be alert in follow-up of older adults for subsequent pulmonary sequela, even among those that had normal imaging finding on initial presentation.