Post COVID-19 Organizing Pneumonia: The Right Time to Interfere

Medicina (Kaunas). 2021 Mar 18;57(3):283. doi: 10.3390/medicina57030283.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed medical care. Healthcare professionals are faced with new issues. Patients who survived COVID-19 have plenty of different continuing symptoms, of which the most common are fatigue and breathlessness. It is not well known how to care for patients with persistent or worsening respiratory symptoms and changes on chest X-ray following COVID-19 pneumonia. In this article, we talk about a subgroup of patients with organizing pneumonia following COVID-19 pneumonia that could be effectively treated with systemic glucocorticoids. It is important that patients with COVID-19 pneumonia be followed-up at least three weeks after diagnosis, in order to recognize early lung damage. We are providing a management algorithm for early diagnosis of lung diseases after COVID-19 pneumonia.

Keywords: COVID-19; interstitial lung diseases; organizing pneumonia; systemic glucocorticoids; viral pneumonia.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Biopsy
  • COVID-19 / complications*
  • COVID-19 / diagnosis
  • COVID-19 / physiopathology
  • COVID-19 Drug Treatment
  • Computed Tomography Angiography
  • Disease Management
  • Early Diagnosis
  • Glucocorticoids / therapeutic use
  • Humans
  • Lung / diagnostic imaging
  • Lung / pathology
  • Lung / physiopathology
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / diagnosis*
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / drug therapy
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / etiology
  • Lung Diseases, Interstitial / physiopathology
  • Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome
  • Pulmonary Diffusing Capacity
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Spirometry
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed
  • Walk Test

Substances

  • Glucocorticoids