Long COVID: Hair Loss Gets the 4th Spot

Hair Loss Common Among Those With Long COVID

The term Long COVID refers to the persistence of symptoms for weeks and months after recovering from the actual COVID 19 infection.

A new systematic review and meta-analysis sought to identify studies that address the long term effects of COVID 19. The goal was to provide an estimate for the prevalence of specific symptoms and signs or lab test results after a COVID19 infection.

The authors refer to LONG COVID as a phenomenon whereby symptoms, signs, or abnormal clinical parameters persist in the patient two or more weeks after COVID-19 onset.

The authors chose to examine studies with a minimum of 100 patients. A total of 18,251 publications were identified by reviewing the published medical literature and there were 15 studies comprising 47, 910 patients that ultimately met the inclusion criteria . The authors estimated the prevalence of 55 long-term effects. The follow-up time ranged from 14 to 110 days post-viral infection. The age of the study participants ranged between 17 and 87 years. It was estimated that 80% of the patients that were infected with SARS-CoV-2 developed one or more long-term symptoms.

The TOP Five Symptoms Post COVID

The five most common symptoms were fatigue (58%), headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair loss (25%), and dyspnea (24%). Lost of taste and loss of smell were present in 23 % and 21 % respectively. Joint pain (19 %), cough (19%), sweating issues (17 %), nausea (16 %), chest pain (16 %), memory loss (16%), hearing loss/tinnitus (15%), anxiety (13%), depression (12%), digestive disorders  (12 %), skin signs (12%), weight loss (12%), rapid heart rate (11%) and palpitations (11%) rounded out the top 20.

Comment

Hair loss is common issue in the post covid period and up to 25 % of patients experiencing COVID 19 infection are expected to have hair loss. More studies are needed to understand the specific patient factors that put a patient at increased risk for hair loss after COVID 19 and how best to treat POST COVID hair loss.

Listen to the study on Dr. Donovan’s Evidence Based Hair Podcast

REFERENCE

Lopez-Leon S et al. More than 50 Long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. medRxiv. 2021 Jan 30;2021.01.27.21250617.