Can Long COVID show up in a blood sample?
A new preprint @resiapretorius suggests it might. Researchers found much higher platelet-monocyte aggregates in people with Long COVID than in healthy controls - about 29% vs 4.6%🧵
That is a striking signal, and it hints that Long COVID may leave a measurable trace in blood.
In healthy controls, a monocyte was more likely to have just one platelet attached. In Long COVID, researchers more often saw multiple platelets attached to a single monocyte.
Why does that matter?
Because platelet-monocyte aggregates sit right at the intersection of clotting and inflammation. When they rise, it can point to ongoing thromboinflammatory activity - in simple words, blood clotting biology and immune signaling feeding into each other.
Pretorius also argues these aggregates could do more than just flag biology.
They may help stratify disease severity and monitor response to treatment - which is a big deal if Long COVID is going to move toward more measurable, blood-based assessment.
This signal is not just an age effect.
In the healthy group, these aggregates rose somewhat with age. In the Long COVID group, the baseline was already elevated, regardless of age.
The idea that Long COVID may be measurable in blood no longer sounds far-fetched.
Thompon at al., An imaging flow cytometry method to study platelet-monocyte aggregates using Long COVID as a model. biorxiv.org/content/10.648…
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