Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
J Infect Dis. 2024 Oct 16;230(4):789-796. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiae270.
Amid efforts to develop effective treatments for acute COVID-19, there is growing recognition of the need to address long COVID as a key outcome measure. We argue there are 7 compelling reasons to include long COVID measurements in clincal trials investigating acute COVID-19 treatments: (1) Long COVID is not rare. (2) Long COVID is debilitating to individuals and has a high societal cost. (3) Those at high risk of severe COVID-19 are also at higher risk of developing long COVID if they are infected with COVID-19. (4) Treatments for acute COVID-19 may reduce the risk of long COVID. (5) Measures exist to track long COVID. (6) Long COVID considerations are potentially important for acute COVID-19 treatment decision making. (7) Deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are increasingly rare. While not every trial needs to include assessments of long COVID, it is worth the research burden to include assessments where possible, as this could facilitate the uptake of acute COVID-19 treatments that lessen the societal burden of long COVID.
在努力开发治疗急性 COVID-19 的有效方法的同时，人们越来越认识到需要将长期 COVID 作为关键的结果衡量标准。我们认为，有 7 个令人信服的理由将长期 COVID 测量纳入急性 COVID-19 治疗的临床试验中：（1）长期 COVID 并不罕见。（2）长期 COVID 使个人衰弱，并给社会带来高成本。（3）如果患有 COVID-19，感染 COVID-19 的高风险人群也面临更高的患长期 COVID 的风险。（4）治疗急性 COVID-19 可能会降低长期 COVID 的风险。（5）存在跟踪长期 COVID 的措施。（6）长期 COVID 的考虑因素对于急性 COVID-19 的治疗决策可能很重要。（7）因 COVID-19 导致的死亡和住院人数越来越少。虽然并非每个试验都需要包括对长期 COVID 的评估，但在可能的情况下进行评估是值得的，因为这有助于采用减轻长期 COVID 对社会负担的急性 COVID-19 治疗方法。
