Yamamoto Yukichika, Otsuka Yuki, Tokumasu Kazuki, Sunada Naruhiko, Nakano Yasuhiro, Honda Hiroyuki, Sakurada Yasue, Hasegawa Toru, Hagiya Hideharu, Otsuka Fumio
Department of General Medicine, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama 700-8558, Japan.
J Clin Med. 2023 Jul 18;12(14):4737. doi: 10.3390/jcm12144737.
The most common symptom of post-acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is fatigue, and it potentially leads to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS); however, a specific prognosticator is lacking. We aimed to elucidate the clinical characteristics of patients who developed ME/CFS after COVID-19.
In this retrospective observational study, patients who visited Okayama University Hospital for long COVID between February 2021 and March 2022 were investigated.
Of the 234 patients, 139 (59.4%) had fatigue symptoms. Fifty patients with fatigue symptoms (21.4%) met the criteria for ME/CFS (ME/CFS group), while the other 89 patients did not (non-ME/CFS group); 95 patients had no fatigue complaints (no-fatigue group). Although the patients' backgrounds were not significantly different between the three groups, the ME/CFS group presented the highest scores on the self-rating symptom scales, including the Fatigue Assessment Scale (FAS), EuroQol, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS). Furthermore, serum ferritin levels, which were correlated with FAS and SDS scores, were significantly higher in the ME/CFS group (193.0 μg/L, interquartile range (IQR): 58.8-353.8) than in the non-ME/CFS group (98.2 μg/L, 40.4-251.5) and no-fatigue group (86.7 μg/L, 37.5-209.0), and a high serum ferritin level was prominent in female patients. Endocrine workup further showed that the ME/CFS group had higher thyrotropin levels but lower growth hormone levels in serum and that insulin-like growth factor-I levels were inversely correlated with ferritin levels (R = -0.328, < 0.05).
Serum ferritin level is a possible predictor of the development of ME/CFS related to long COVID, especially in female patients.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）急性感染后最常见的症状是疲劳，且可能导致肌痛性脑脊髓炎/慢性疲劳综合征（ME/CFS）；然而，目前缺乏特定的预后指标。我们旨在阐明COVID-19后发生ME/CFS患者的临床特征。
在这项回顾性观察研究中，对2021年2月至2022年3月期间因长期感染COVID-19前往冈山大学医院就诊的患者进行了调查。
在234例患者中，139例（59.4%）有疲劳症状。50例有疲劳症状的患者（21.4%）符合ME/CFS标准（ME/CFS组），另外89例患者不符合（非ME/CFS组）；95例患者无疲劳主诉（无疲劳组）。尽管三组患者的背景无显著差异，但ME/CFS组在自评症状量表上得分最高，包括疲劳评估量表（FAS）、欧洲五维度健康量表（EuroQol）和自评抑郁量表（SDS）。此外，与FAS和SDS评分相关的血清铁蛋白水平在ME/CFS组（193.0μg/L，四分位间距（IQR）：58.8 - 353.8）显著高于非ME/CFS组（98.2μg/L，40.4 - 251.5）和无疲劳组（86.7μg/L，37.5 -
