Short and mid-term characteristics of COVID-19 disease course in athletes: A high-volume, single-center study, 2022, Juhász et al

Abstract

Introduction
At the pandemic's beginning, significant concern has risen about the prevalence of myocardial involvement after SARS-CoV-2 infection. We assessed the cardiovascular burden of SARS-CoV-2 in a large cohort of athletes and identified factors that might affect the disease course. We included 633 athletes in our study on whom we performed extensive cardiology examinations after recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection. More than half of the athletes (n = 322) returned for a follow-up examination median of 107 days after the commencement of their infection.

Results
Troponin T positivity was as low as 1.4% of the athletes, where the subsequently performed examinations did not show definitive, ongoing myocardial injury. Altogether, 31% of the athletes' rapid training rebuild was hindered by persistent or reoccurring symptoms. Female athletes reported a higher prevalence of return to play (RTP) symptoms than their male counterparts (34% vs. 19%, p = 0.005). The development of long COVID symptoms was independently predicted by increasing age and acute symptoms' severity in a multiple regression model (AUC 0.75, CI 0.685–0.801). Athletes presenting with either or both cough and ferritin levels higher than >150 μg/L had a 4.1x (CI 1.78–9.6, p = 0.001) higher odds ratio of developing persistent symptoms.

Conclusion
While SARS-CoV-2 rarely affects the myocardium in athletes, about one in three of them experience symptoms beyond the acute phase. Identifying those athletes with a predisposition to developing long-standing symptoms may aid clinicians and trainers in finding the optimal return-to-play timing and training load rebuild pace.

Open access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sms.14265

 

This is coming from the Heart and Vascular Centre of Semmelweis University here, who also produced this study perviously with some overlapping researchers: The associations of long-COVID symptoms, clinical characteristics and affective psychological constructs in a non-hospitalized cohort, 2022, Ocsovszky

I didn't notice any particular psychologization in this new one at first glance. The lead authors are different though (the lead researcher of the first one wasn't involved in this study but the lead author of this study was involved in both).