COVID-19 infection does not appear to impair the lung function of children and adolescents, according to a study presented at the virtual European Respiratory Society International Congress on Tuesday.
A team led by researchers at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, found that even patients with asthma did not show a statistically significant deterioration in lung function.
However, such patients showed slightly lower measurements for the amount of air they could exhale forcibly in one second — known as forced expiratory air volume in one second (FEV1), which is one of the measures of lung function.
A second study presented at the conference on Sunday showed that the lung function in children and adolescents was also unimpaired after COVID-19 infection, apart from those who experienced a severe infection.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about if and how the lung is affected after clearance of the coronavirus infection, especially in young people from the general population with less severe disease,” said Ida Mogensen, a post-doctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute.
The first study gathered information from 661 young people with an average age of 22 years who were part of a large research that enrolled children born between 1994 and 1996 in Stockholm, and who have been followed by researchers ever since.
Collected data included measurements of lung function, inflammation and white blood cells called eosinophils, which are part of the immune system.
Of the 661 participants, 178 had antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, indicating they had been infected.
The researchers measured FEV1, forced vital capacity (FVC) which represents the volume of air in the lungs that can be exhaled after a taking the deepest breath possible, and FEV1/FVC ratio, which is an indicator of narrowed airways.
They calculated the changes in lung function between the period before the and during the pandemic.
The researchers then compared the percentage change with participants who had not been infected. “Our analysis showed similar lung function irrespective of COVID-19 history,” said Mogensen.
When the researchers included 123 participants with asthma in the analysis, the 24 per cent who had had COVID-19 showed a slightly lower lung function, but this was not statistically significant. (PTI)
