Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Centre for Inflammation and Tissue Repair, UCL Respiratory, University College London, London, UK.
BMJ Open Respir Res. 2021 Sep;8(1). doi: 10.1136/bmjresp-2021-001049.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to over 100 million cases worldwide. The UK has had over 4 million cases, 400 000 hospital admissions and 100 000 deaths. Many patients with COVID-19 suffer long-term symptoms, predominantly breathlessness and fatigue whether hospitalised or not. Early data suggest potentially severe long-term consequence of COVID-19 is development of long COVID-19-related interstitial lung disease (LC-ILD).
The UK Interstitial Lung Disease Consortium (UKILD) will undertake longitudinal observational studies of patients with suspected ILD following COVID-19. The primary objective is to determine ILD prevalence at 12 months following infection and whether clinically severe infection correlates with severity of ILD. Secondary objectives will determine the clinical, genetic, epigenetic and biochemical factors that determine the trajectory of recovery or progression of ILD. Data will be obtained through linkage to the Post-Hospitalisation COVID platform study and community studies. Additional substudies will conduct deep phenotyping. The Xenon MRI investigation of Alveolar dysfunction Substudy will conduct longitudinal xenon alveolar gas transfer and proton perfusion MRI. The POST COVID-19 interstitial lung DiseasE substudy will conduct clinically indicated bronchoalveolar lavage with matched whole blood sampling. Assessments include exploratory single cell RNA and lung microbiomics analysis, gene expression and epigenetic assessment.
All contributing studies have been granted appropriate ethical approvals. Results from this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals.
This study will ensure the extent and consequences of LC-ILD are established and enable strategies to mitigate progression of LC-ILD.
COVID-19 大流行已在全球导致超过 1 亿例病例。英国有超过 400 万例病例，40 万例住院治疗和 10 万例死亡。许多 COVID-19 患者长期出现症状，主要是呼吸急促和疲劳，无论是否住院。早期数据表明，COVID-19 可能会导致严重的长期后果，即发展为长 COVID-19 相关间质性肺病（LC-ILD）。
英国间质性肺病联合会（UKILD）将对 COVID-19 后疑似ILD 的患者进行纵向观察研究。主要目标是确定感染后 12 个月时ILD 的患病率，以及临床严重感染是否与ILD 的严重程度相关。次要目标将确定决定ILD 恢复或进展轨迹的临床、遗传、表观遗传和生化因素。数据将通过与住院后 COVID 平台研究和社区研究的链接获得。额外的子研究将进行深入的表型研究。氙气 MRI 对肺泡功能障碍子研究的研究将进行纵向氙气肺泡气体转移和质子灌注 MRI。POST COVID-19 间质性肺疾病子研究将进行临床指示性的支气管肺泡灌洗，并进行匹配的全血采样。评估包括探索性的单细胞 RNA 和肺微生物组学分析、基因表达和表观遗传评估。
所有参与的研究都已获得适当的伦理批准。该研究的结果将通过同行评审期刊进行传播。
这项研究将确保确定 LC-ILD 的程度和后果，并能够制定减轻 LC-ILD 进展的策略。
