Noticed lots of excitement about this preprint concluding that #SARSCoV2 spike protein can be a potential biomarker for PASC (#LongCovid). It's good to see research on this but it's still early days for biomarker statements IMO. Some quick thoughts:
1/6
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
1/6
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
The study compared those with PASC (n=37) & those whom the study calls #COVID19 patients (n=26) (not diagnosed with PASC -does that mean they definitely don't have it?). So relatively small numbers overall. Also I say 'compared' but I can't find any statistical comparisons.
2/6
2/6
It's not ot clear why PASC patients samples were collected for up to 12 months and those with no diagnosis for up to 5 months. Also the time points comparisons within those periods are not entirely clear. There are only 6 non-PASC temporal profiles shown in Fig S1.
3/6
3/6
They measured 3 types of SARSCoV2 antigen expression: S1 subunit of spike, full length spike & nucleocapsid (N), in plasma samples. They report finding S1 & N in both groups but the full spike only in the PASC group (60% of them)- only in 12 patients more than once over time.
4/6
4/6
It is not clear how they controlled for history of vaccination and number/timing of doses in relation to both symptoms and correlation with spike protein detection. In fig 2 some vaccination timings are shown for some of the 12 patients but not for others.
5/6
5/6
Some of these queries may get clarified once the study is peer reviewed. My point is these are interesting preliminary findings but I hope this doesn't cause #LongCovid patients/doctors/employers to seek/interpret clinical diagnosis based on this now. I wory about exclusion.
6/6
6/6
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