| Abstrakt: |
Background: The study was carried out to evaluate the pulmonary fibrosis cases secondary to Covid-19 pneumonia and its relation with inflammatory markers in patients presenting at Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Materials and Methods: This was a Prospective Cohort study conducted from 1st August 2021 to 31st July 2022 and included 40 RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia patients who completed six months follow up. Demographic and clinical characteristics were recorded. Laboratory and radiological indices including pulmonary fibrosis were collected at admission and at three and six months and analysed using Epi Info version 7 software. Results: Among the total of 40 patients, 26(65%) were males and 14 females (35%). Majority of patients belonged to age group of 51-60 years (35%). In 15(37.50%) patients, fibrosis was present at 3 months and at 6 months, fibrosis was present in 11 (27.50%) patients. Fibrosis was absent when dexamethasone was administered for a duration of 6.7(±3.94) days at 3 months and at 6 months when it was given for a duration of 7(±3.8) days which was found to be statistically significant (p value = 0.0047,0.009). At 3 months fibrosis was present in majority of patients with deranged TLC, QCRP, NLR, LDH (40%,38.24%,42.86% and 42.42% respectively) and also D-dimer and ferritin (60% and 46.67% respectively), which was found to be statistically significant while At 6 months fibrosis was present in majority of patients with deranged QCRP, NLR, LDH, D-dimer (29.41%,31.43%,33.3% and 40% respectively) along with ferritin(36.67%), which was significant. Conclusion: Our study concluded that in most of the patients with mild lung involvement at presentation, fibrosis was significantly lower at 3 months and 6 months of follow up in comparison to patients with severe lung involvement and steroids for average duration of 10 days at presentation was significantly associated with improvement in fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
