Mitochondrial capacity of patients with post-acute COVID syndrome
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A FEASIBILITY STUDY TO ASSESS THE MITOCHONDRIAL CAPACITY AFTER AN EXERCISE TEST IN PATIENTS WITH POST-ACUTE COVID SYNDROME.
IRAS ID
297823
Contact name
Mike Grocott
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 0 days
Research summary
Our understanding of the long-term outcomes of patients who have survived acute COVID-19 disease currently remains limited. It is becoming increasingly evident that some patients who have had acute COVID-19 go on to experience persistent symptoms or prolonged illness known as Long COVID or post-acute COVID syndrome. Several studies in the hospitalised and community settings have shown that this condition usually presents with clusters of long-term symptoms most commonly, fatigue, generalised pain, persisting high body temperature and psychiatric problems. These symptoms also appears to overlap with a range of other post-viral conditions affecting the lungs, kidneys and heart and the most commonly reported symptoms by patients with post-acute COVID syndrome are fatigue and dyspnea. Furthermore, clinical studies shown that there is a high prevalence of muscle fatigue and impairment in physical performance in these patients regardless of the severity of their clinical presentation of post-acute COVID syndrome. However, of significant clinical and public health concerns, the biological mechanisms involved in the persistent symptoms of muscle fatigue and impairment in physical performance in patients with post-acute COVID syndrome has not yet been characterised. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore pragmatic relatively low cost techniques to identify at an early stage patients with post-acute COVID syndrome in order to alleviate the symptoms and improve the quality of life for those patients affected by the syndrome. Recent studies have proposed that metabolic impairment such as mitochondrial dysfunction has been shown to be significantly associated with many of the symptoms observed in patients with post-acute COVID syndrome such as chronic fatigue and cardiorespiratory fitness. There is therefore a need for quantitative measures of mitochondrial capacity in patients with post-acute COVID syndrome both to aid clinical decision-making and to evaluate targeted therapeutic interventions at different stages of post-acute COVID syndrome.
REC name
London - Camberwell St Giles Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/1446
Date of REC Opinion
16 May 2022
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion