Tag Archives: COVID-19

When We Can Stop Pre-Procedure Screening For COVID-19

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Briefly noted: S Sultan, SM Siddique et al. Gastroenterol 2020; 159: 1935-1948. Full text: AGA Institute Rapid Review and Recommendations on the Role of Pre-Procedure SARS-CoV-2 Testing and Endoscopy

Table 1 provides a summary of the recommendations and indicates a threshold for which routine pre-procedure testing may not be needed:

  • “For endoscopy centers where the prevalence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is low (<0.5%), the AGA suggests against implementing a pretesting strategy.”
  • Conditional recommendation, very low certainty evidence
  • Rationale: “In low-prevalence settings, a pretesting strategy may not be informative for triage due to the high number of false positives, thus PPE availability may drive decision-making.”

My take: Particularly after the rollout of vaccination to health care providers, routine testing for SARS-CoV-2 is not likely to be needed once the prevalence drops to low levels.

Related blog posts:

Persistent Symptoms After COVID-19, FAQs, and New Strain

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A large study from Wuhan showed that after 6 months following hospitalization, most still had lingering symptoms.

Full text: C Huang et al. Lancet DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32656-8; 6-month consequences of COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study

Key point: At 6 months after acute infection, COVID-19 survivors (n=1733 enrolled in study) were mainly troubled with fatigue or muscle weakness, sleep difficulties, and anxiety or depression. Patients who were more severely ill during their hospital stay had more severe impaired pulmonary diffusion capacities and abnormal chest imaging manifestations

NY Times analysis (Jan 8, 2021): 6 Months After Leaving the Hospital, Covid Survivors Still Face Lingering Health Issues

  • The most common issue was ongoing exhaustion or muscle weakness, experienced by 63 percent of the patients
  • About one-quarter of the patients reported difficulty sleeping
  • 23 percent said they experienced anxiety or depression
  • “Some of the sickest patients were excluded, so perhaps some of the outcomes that were reported would be worse if those patients were included”

NEJM Link: COVID-19 Vaccine: Frequently Asked Questions

NY Times (1/15/21): C.D.C. Warns the New Virus Variant Could Fuel Huge Spikes in Covid Cases “The new variant, called B.1.1.7, was first identified in Britain, where it rapidly became the primary source of infections, accounting for more than 80 percent of new cases diagnosed in London and at least a quarter of cases elsewhere in the country.”

Expecting Change in Eosinophilic Esophagitis Treatment

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A recent study (EJ Laserna-Mendieta et al. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2020; 18: 2903-2911. Full text: Efficacy of Therapy for Eosinophilic Esophagitis in Real-World Practice) highlights the disconnect between clinical practice and outcomes.

  • Methods: This study relied on the multicenter EoE CONNECT database—with 589 patients.
    • Clinical remission was < 50% in Dysphagia Symptom Score; any improvement in symptoms = clinical response.
    • Histologic remission was eosinophil count below 5 eosinophils/hpf; 5-14/hpf = histologic response.

Key findings:

  • Topical steroids were most effective in inducing histologic remission: 54.8% compared to 36.1% for PPIs and 18.5% for empiric elimination diet; histologic remission and response was 67.7%, 49.7%, and 48.1% respectively.
  • Topical steroids were most effective in inducing clinical and histologic remission or response (in 67.7% of patients), followed by empiric elimination diets (in 52.0%), and PPIs (in 50.2%).
  • However, PPIs were the first-line treatment for 76.4% of patients, followed by topical steroids (for 10.5%) and elimination diets (for 7.8%).

My take: This data (and others) indicate that topical steroids are most effective pharmacologic therapy; at some point, I expect that they will become the most frequently used.

Related blog posts:

“Layering two less specialized masks on top of each other can provide comparable protection [to N95]. Dr. Marr recommended wearing face-hugging cloth masks over surgical masks, which tend to be made with more filter-friendly materials but fit more loosely. An alternative is to wear a cloth mask with a pocket that can be stuffed with filter material, like the kind found in vacuum bags.”

Unrelated from NY Times: One Mask Is Good. Would Two Be Better? (Yes)

Deluge of Liver Disease Due to COVID-19?

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Two articles in a recent issue of Hepatology describe both direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on the liver.

The first study with 2273 patients (MM Phipps et al Hepatology 2020; 72: 807-817. Full Text: Acute Liver Injury in COVID‐19: Prevalence and Association with Clinical Outcomes in a Large U.S. Cohort), with retrospective data, describes how most cases of COVID-19 are mild. Severe cases of liver disease are generally a marker for elevated inflammatory markers and severe systemic disease. Key findings:

  • 45% had mild (ALT <2 x ULN), 21% moderate (ALT 2-5 x ULN), and 6.4% severe liver injury (SLI) (ALT >5 x ULN).
  • Patients with SLI had a more severe clinical course, including higher rates of intensive care unit admission (69%), intubation (65%), renal replacement therapy (RRT; 33%), and mortality (42%).
  • In multivariable analysis, peak ALT was significantly associated with death or discharge to hospice (OR, 1.14; P = 0.044), controlling for age, body mass index, diabetes, hypertension, intubation, and RRT

Going into this new year, the more concerning effects of COVID-19 pandemic for the liver is likely to be the increase is severe chronic liver disease related to alcohol (and perhaps fatty liver disease too). The second article (BL Da et al. Hepatology 2020; 72: 1102-1108. Coronavirus Disease 2019 Hangover: A Rising Tide of Alcohol Use Disorder and Alcohol‐Associated Liver Disease) discusses the expectation of increased liver disease due to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD). Key points:

  • In China, reports indicate a “>2-fold increase in harmful drinking after COVID-19, an effect likely repeated in the United States where an estimated 12.7% of the population has AUD and ALD is responsible for the highest hospitalization cost burden among all chronic liver diseases (CLDs).”
  • Increased alcohol use is likely to worsen other chronic liver diseases in addition to ALD
  • In addition, all of these effects are compounded by avoidance of health care facilities and delays in care

My take: COVID-19 infections have direct effects on the liver. However, the increased use of alcohol as well as weight gain are likely to be more important in terms of liver-related morbidity and mortality.

Most Popular 2020 Posts

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I want to thank all of you who take an interest in my blog, particularly those who give suggestions, references, and encouragement. The following posts were the most popular from the past year.

Related post: Favorite Posts of 2020

Sandy Springs at Sunrise

Favorite Posts of 2020

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These are some of my favorite posts of the past year.

Humor:

GI:

Endoscopy:

Liver:

Nutrition

COVID-19:

Other:

From Picnic Island, Tampa Bay

“Hang in There. Help is On The Way.”

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The NY Times published an excellent segment on COVID-19. Here’s a link: “Hang in There. Help is On The Way.”

A guide to the last months (we hope) of the pandemic:

  • Hunker Down for a Little Bit Longer
    • Rising case counts and rising test positivity rates mean there is more virus out there — and you need to double down on precautions, especially if you have a high-risk person in your orbit.
    • Whether your bubble is just your immediate household — or you’ve formed a bubble with others — take some time to check in with everyone and seal the leaks.
    • Mask up. You’re going to need it for a while.
    • Watch the clock, and take the fun outside… If you’re spending time indoors with people who don’t live with you, wear a mask and keep the visit as short as possible. (Better yet, don’t do it at all.) 
    • Take care of yourself, save a medical worker.
  • Scale Back Your Holiday Plans
    • The only way to drive down infection rates for now will be to avoid large indoor gatherings, wear masks, cancel travel and limit your holiday celebrations to just those who live in your home.
    • Socialize outdoors the Scandinavian way.
  • Take Care of Yourself at Home
    • The vast majority of patients with Covid-19 will manage the illness at home. Check in with your doctor early in the course of your illness, and make a plan for monitoring your health and checking in again if you start to feel worse.
    • If you feel sick, you should be tested for Covid-19. A dry cough, fatigue, headache, fever or loss of sense of smell are some of the common symptoms of Covid-19. After you take your test, stay isolated from others and alert the people you’ve spent time with over the last few days, so they can take precautions while you’re waiting for your result.
    • While every patient is different, doctors say that days five through 10 of the illness are often the most worrisome time for respiratory complications of Covid-19.
  • Look for Better Days This Spring
    • The vaccines will be much less effective at preventing death and illness in 2021 if they are introduced into a population where the coronavirus is raging — as is now the case in the United States.
    • An analogy may be helpful here, says David Leonhardt, who writes The Morning newsletter for The Times. He explains that a vaccine that’s 95 percent effective, as Moderna’s and Pfizer’s versions appear to be, is a powerful fire hose. But the size of a fire is still a bigger determinant of how much destruction occurs.

The print version has some additional advice. From Dr. Fauci: “We have crushed similar outbreaks historically. We did it with smallpox. We did it with polio, We did it with measles. We can do it with coronavirus…The future doesn’t need to be bleak. It’s within our hands to really shape the future, both by public health measures and by taking up the vaccine.”

COVID-19 -Now #1 Cause of Death in U.S.

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S Woolf et al. JAMA. Published online December 17, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.24865: Full text: COVID-19 as the Leading Cause of Death in the United States

  • Between November 1, 2020, and December 13, 2020, the 7-day moving average for daily COVID-19 deaths tripled, from 826 to 2430 deaths per day
  • As occurred in the spring, COVID-19 has become the leading cause of death in the United States (daily mortality rates for heart disease and cancer, which for decades have been the 2 leading causes of death, are approximately 1700 and 1600 deaths per day, respectively)

Related blog posts:

Vaccine Strategy: Nate Silver’s twitter feed suggests that after vaccination of medical personnel, focus of vaccine efforts should rely on age rather than at-risk conditions (which could affect 100 million in U.S). Using an age-based system would also be easier; it would minimize influence and wealth in the distribution of the vaccine.

COVID-19: Excess Mortality in Younger Adults

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From NEJM Journal Watch: COVID-19: Excess Mortality in Younger Adults

“Excess mortality in younger adults: Among U.S. adults aged 25 to 44, there were 19% more deaths than expected — or 12,000 people — from March through July 2020. In JAMA, the researchers — including Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who has been nominated to lead the CDC — report that 38% of this excess mortality was directly from COVID-19, but that proportion varied by region. Deaths from COVID-19 were similar to or exceeded unintentional deaths from opioids in this age group in 2018 in several areas of the country. The authors write that this may be an underestimate of the COVID-19 mortality burden in younger adults, as they may have been undertested.”

Link to study: All-Cause Excess Mortality and COVID-19–Related Mortality Among US Adults Aged 25-44 Years, March-July 2020