COVID-19 and Vascular Ageing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Role of Arterial Stiffness and Vascular Ageing on COVID-19 Severity
IRAS ID
304698
Contact name
Riaz Akhtar
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Liverpool
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
In December 2019, the news of an outbreak of an unusual infection of the lungs (defined as “atypical pneumonia”) raised among media. The infection was associate to a novel respiratory virus (of the coronavirus family – the group of viruses responsible for respiratory infections in humans such as the common cold), and became officially known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). The new infection, first appeared in the city of Wuhan in the Hubei province of China and quickly spread around the world, becoming an uncontrolled pandemic and causing the clinical manifestations of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19). Despite the disease being defined as a respiratory infection, the strong impact of COVID-19 on the cardiovascular system has been widely reported.
Current available evidence suggest that COVID-19 leads to negative alterations of the cardiovascular system and accelerates vascular ageing. Additionally, current evidence shows that patients with pre-existing cardiometabolic diseases experience worse outcomes if infected by SARS-Cov-2. To prevent these negative outcomes, it is necessary to gain insight into the long-term vascular consequences of COVID-19 and on the identification of early predictors of cardiovascular events in infected people. For this reason, follow-up studies amongst the survivors of this acute infection are necessary, in order to identify the best approach for a preventive strategy.
The aim of this project is to evaluate whether COVID-19 induces accelerated vascular ageing and whether the speed of vascular ageing is influenced by the severity of the infection and by any pre-existing cardiometabolic disease. An additional aim of this study is to understand if psychosocial factors (e.g., stress following hospitalisation) play a role in the accelerated vascular ageing process induced by COVID-19.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/1707
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jan 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion