부산대학교 도서관

Background: The study was carried out to evaluate the pulmonary fibrosis cases secondary to Covid-19 pneumonia and it’s relation with inflammatory markers in patients presenting at Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Materials and Methods:This was a Prospective Cohort study conducted from 1 st August 2021 to 31 st July 2022 and included 40 RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 pneumonia patients who completed six months follow up. Demographic & clinical characteristics were recorded. Laboratory & radiological indices including pulmonary fibrosis were collected at admission and at three and six months and analysed using Epi Info version 7 software. Results: Among the totalof 40 patients, 26(65%) were males and 14 females (35%). Majority of patients belonged to age group of 51-60 years (35%). In 15(37.50%) patients, fibrosis was present at 3 months and at 6 months, fibrosis was present in 11 (27.50%) patients. Fibrosis was absent when dexamethasone was administered for a duration of 6.7(±3.94) days at 3 months and at 6 months when it was given for a duration of 7(±3.8) days which was found to be statistically significant (p value = 0.0047,0.009) . At 3 months fibrosis was present in majority of patients with deranged TLC, QCRP, NLR, LDH (40%,38.24%,42.86% and 42.42% respectively) and also D-dimer and ferritin (60% and 46.67% respectively), which was found to be statistically significant while At 6 months fibrosis was present in majority of patients with deranged QCRP, NLR, LDH, D-dimer (29.41%,31.43%,33.3% and 40% respectively) along with ferritin(36.67%), which was significant. Conclusion: Our study concluded that in most of the patients with mild lung involvement at presentation, fibrosis was significantly lower at 3 months and 6 months of follow up in comparison to patients with severe lung involvement and steroids for average duration of 10 days at presentation was significantly associated with improvement in fibrosis.