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Elevated vascular transformation blood biomarkers in Long-COVID indicate angiogenesis as a key pathophysiological mechanism 2022, Patel et al

Discussion in 'Long Covid research' started by Sly Saint, Oct 11, 2022.

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  1. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Abstract
    Background

    Long-COVID is characterized by prolonged, diffuse symptoms months after acute COVID-19. Accurate diagnosis and targeted therapies for Long-COVID are lacking. We investigated vascular transformation biomarkers in Long-COVID patients.

    Methods
    A case–control study utilizing Long-COVID patients, one to six months (median 98.5 days) post-infection, with multiplex immunoassay measurement of sixteen blood biomarkers of vascular transformation, including ANG-1, P-SEL, MMP-1, VE-Cad, Syn-1, Endoglin, PECAM-1, VEGF-A, ICAM-1, VLA-4, E-SEL, thrombomodulin, VEGF-R2, VEGF-R3, VCAM-1 and VEGF-D.

    Results
    Fourteen vasculature transformation blood biomarkers were significantly elevated in Long-COVID outpatients, versus acutely ill COVID-19 inpatients and healthy controls subjects (P < 0.05). A unique two biomarker profile consisting of ANG-1/P-SEL was developed with machine learning, providing a classification accuracy for Long-COVID status of 96%. Individually, ANG-1 and P-SEL had excellent sensitivity and specificity for Long-COVID status (AUC = 1.00, P < 0.0001; validated in a secondary cohort). Specific to Long-COVID, ANG-1 levels were associated with female sex and a lack of disease interventions at follow-up (P < 0.05).

    Conclusions
    Long-COVID patients suffer prolonged, diffuse symptoms and poorer health. Vascular transformation blood biomarkers were significantly elevated in Long-COVID, with angiogenesis markers (ANG-1/P-SEL) providing classification accuracy of 96%. Vascular transformation blood biomarkers hold potential for diagnostics, and modulators of angiogenesis may have therapeutic efficacy.

    https://molmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s10020-022-00548-8

    eta:
     
    Sly Saint, Oct 11, 2022
    #1
    Mij, Hutan, Milo and 7 others like this.
  2. dreampop

    dreampop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    This paper is interesting, the findings of increase in ANG-1 and P-SEL are large in the long covid cohort vs others with no overlap. I don't know how meaningful grouping 14 factors together is, but AUC=1 is quite good, no? I don't know how frequently the ANG-1/P-SEL factors are tested for, but it seems like something that should have come up in other studies if it's meaningful.

    On the other hand, the long covid cohort is a group of very poorly defined ("diffuse lingering symptoms") sequential referrals. Having had an intervention, which seems to be any treatment at any point along the way, seem to strongly influence ANG-1, so a much tighter study would need to be done to clear that up.
     
    dreampop, Oct 12, 2022
    #2
    Jacob Richter, Hutan, Sean and 2 others like this.
  3. Jaybee00

    Jaybee00 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    “Second, our data show elevated biomarkers in Long-COVID patients at one to six months (median 98.5 days) after acute infection, with clustering at approximately 100 days, but we did not have longitudinal samples from each of these patients to determine individual biomarker resolution.”

    They really need to do longitudinal sampling over a much longer time course before they can declare that LC is distinct from MECFS.
     
    Jaybee00, Oct 13, 2022
    #3
    obeat, Jacob Richter, Hutan and 3 others like this.
  4. Milo

    Milo Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Exactly. They would have to compare LC patients with ME pts with similar onset date.
     
    Milo, Oct 13, 2022
    #4
    obeat, RedFox, Sean and 2 others like this.
  5. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    Link to an article about the study
     
    Hutan, Oct 13, 2022
    #5
    Sean and Trish like this.
  6. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    This tells us that people who have had Covid-19 one to 6 months ago are different to healthy controls (I think the healthy controls had never had Covid, as the blood was taken from a blood bank) and also are different to people hospitalised with acute Covid-19.
    I don't think it tells us that the people with Long Covid are different to people who had Covid and were recovering without any lingering symptoms - that is, with respect to the 16 biomarkers they looked at. Indeed the elevations of the two molecules identified as most diagnostic are recognised as being helpful in healing.
    They also noted that the people with the highest levels of ANG-1 actually were the ones that didn't need interventions at follow-up
    I find it a bit amazing that the authors don't even mention the absence of post-Covid healthy controls as a problem in this study.

    Perhaps these molecules are important, perhaps post-Covid people without Long Covid have even higher levels when they are recovering from an infection. Perhaps the Long Covid levels are consistent with a normal response to recovery from infection. We can't tell from this study.

    (I hope I haven't misunderstood something.)
     
    Hutan, Oct 14, 2022
    #6
    obeat, Helene, Mij and 5 others like this.
  7. TigerLilea

    TigerLilea Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Merged thread
    https://globalnews.ca/news/9194036/...KZAwyPoFKCK6c1QsiIDhOD4422Z1NYtdmg7Beu3w-XPms
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2022
    TigerLilea, Oct 16, 2022
    #7
    DokaGirl, Starlight, SNT Gatchaman and 2 others like this.
  8. Creekside

    Creekside Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    One of these days there will be a study showing some markers that supposedly differentiate people who spend a lot of time complaining about symptoms vs healthy controls. ;)
     
    Creekside, Oct 17, 2022
    #8
    Sean likes this.
  9. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    Yeah, I want to see the brains scans on people who lust for power over other people.
     
    Sean, Oct 18, 2022
    #9

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