None Of 25 Routine Laboratory Tests Were Clinically Useful For Diagnosing Long COVID, Despite Slight Differences In Results Between Patients With And Without Prior SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Study Shows

MedPage Today (8/12, Kahn) reports, “None of 25 routine laboratory tests were clinically useful for diagnosing long COVID, despite some slight differences in results between patients with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to an analysis of the RECOVER-Adult cohort.” After excluding participants who had pre-existing diabetes, investigators also observed “the difference in mean [hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C)] levels was attenuated, at 5.40% for participants with prior infection compared with 5.37% for those with no prior infection.” NBC News (8/12, Syal) reports the study “used data from more than 10,000 patients at 83 clinical sites around the” US, with investigators looking at “a number of lab results from the patients, including routine blood counts; kidney and liver tests results; and markers of inflammation in the body.” The findings were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.