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Retinal Involvement in COVID-19: Results From a Prospective Retina Screening Program in the Acute and Convalescent Phase

Objective: To detect retinal involvement in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in acute and convalescent phase by their fundus screening. Methods: In a prospective, cross-sectional, observational study (July–November 2020), 235 patients (142 acute and 93 convalescent phase) underwent fundu...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bansal, Reema, Markan, Ashish, Gautam, Nitin, Guru, Rashmi Ranjan, Lakshmi, P. V. M., Katoch, Deeksha, Agarwal, Aniruddha, Singh, Mini P., Suri, Vikas, Mohindra, Ritin, Sahni, Neeru, Bhalla, Ashish, Malhotra, Pankaj, Gupta, Vishali, Puri, G. D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8264127/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34249972
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.681942
Descripción
Sumario:Objective: To detect retinal involvement in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in acute and convalescent phase by their fundus screening. Methods: In a prospective, cross-sectional, observational study (July–November 2020), 235 patients (142 acute and 93 convalescent phase) underwent fundus screening in a tertiary care center in North India. For convalescent phase, “hospitalized” patients (73) were screened at least 2 weeks after hospital discharge, and “home-isolated” patients (20) were screened 17 days after symptom onset/COVID-19 testing. Results: None in acute phase showed any retinal lesion that could be attributed exclusively to COVID-19. Five patients (5.38%) in convalescent phase had cotton wool spots (CWSs) with/without retinal hemorrhage, with no other retinal finding, and no visual symptoms, seen at a median of 30 days from COVID-19 diagnosis. Conclusions: CWSs (and retinal hemorrhages) were an incidental finding in COVID-19, detected only in the convalescent phase. These patients were much older (median age = 69 years) than the average age of our sample and had systemic comorbidities (diabetes mellitus, hypertension, etc.). We propose the term “COVID-19 retinopathy” to denote the presence of CWSs at the posterior pole, occasionally associated with intraretinal hemorrhages, in the absence of ocular inflammation in patients with a history of COVID-19 disease.