Ocular manifestations and SARS-CoV-2 detection in tears and conjunctival scrape from non-severe COVID-19 patients

Autor: Bing Jiang, Shao-Jie Li, Wen-Long Wang, Min Hu, Sui He, Jian Cao, Li Jiang, Yun Li
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Ophthalmology, Vol 14, Iss 8, Pp 1133-1137 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2222-3959
2227-4898
DOI: 10.18240/ijo.2021.08.01
Popis: AIM: To explore the ocular features of corona virus disease (COVID)-19 and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 detection in tears and conjunctival scrapes in non-severe COVID-19 patients. METHODS: This is a multicenter observational clinical study with no intervention conducted from Jan 25th to March 1st, 2020. Clinical data and samples of tears and conjunctival scraping were collected in consecutive laboratory-confirmed, non-severe COVID-19 patients from three hospitals. COVID-19 virus was analyzed by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) kits. RESULTS: Totally 255 laboratory-confirmed, non-severe COVID-19 patients were recruited for ocular manifestation investigation. Of them, 54.9% were females, with a mean age of 49.4y. None of the patients has evidence of uveitis; 11 patients (4.3%) complained of mild asthenopia; 2 (0.8%) had mild conjunctival congestion and serous secretion. Twenty-five of them had performed tears and conjunctival scrape for COVID-19 virus detection, with 4 yield possible positive results in the nucleoprotein gene. One of them were asymptomatic with normal chest CT and positive pharyngeal swab result. CONCLUSION: Ocular manifestations are neither common nor specific in non-severe COVID-19 patients. Meanwhile, COVID-19 virus nucleotides can be detected in the tears and conjunctival scrape samples, warranting further research on the transmissibility by the ocular route.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals