A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-supported study has found that routine lab tests may not be useful in making a long COVID diagnosis for people who have symptoms of the condition. The study, part of NIH's Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (NIH RECOVER) Initiative and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine , highlights how challenging it can be to identify and diagnose a novel illness such as long COVID. Our challenge is to discover biomarkers that can help us quickly and accurately diagnose long COVID to ensure people struggling with this disease receive the most appropriate care as soon as possible.
Long COVID symptoms can prevent someone from returning to work or school, and may even make everyday tasks a burden, so the ability for rapid diagnosis is key." David Goff, M.D.
, Ph.D., director for the Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Long COVID encompasses a wide spectrum of symptoms and health conditions that persist for months or years after infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
No validated clinical biomarkers of long COVID have been found to date, so diagnosing the condition currently requires gathering a detailed medical history and having patients take a physical exam to understand their symptoms, as well as getting laboratory work to rule out other causes. The researchers conducted the study to determine whether a SARS-CoV-2 infection led to changes in biomarkers, such as platel.