690
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    1
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Potential for increased prevalence of neuropathic pain after the COVID-19 pandemic

      review-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          This review focuses on the neurological complications of COVID-19 including Guillain–Barré syndrome, myelitis, and stroke with regards to their potential risk of chronic neuropathic pain.

          Abstract

          Although coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) most commonly manifests with acute respiratory symptoms, one very common symptom of COVID-19 is pain. As COVID-19 often causes peripheral or central neurological complications, it is anticipated that a number of the chronic pain complications of COVID-19 will be neuropathic. This review first examines the most common viral infections responsible for neurological complications including neuropathic pain. These encompass herpes zoster, HIV, poliovirus, enteroviruses, and several tropical viruses. Neurological complications of COVID-19 including in particular Guillain–Barré syndrome, myelitis, and stroke are reviewed with regards to their potential risk of chronic neuropathic pain. Prospective longitudinal cohorts of patients should be implemented to evaluate the exact risk of neuropathic pain after COVID-19.

          Related collections

          Most cited references66

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Neurologic Manifestations of Hospitalized Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Wuhan, China

          The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, is serious and has the potential to become an epidemic worldwide. Several studies have described typical clinical manifestations including fever, cough, diarrhea, and fatigue. However, to our knowledge, it has not been reported that patients with COVID-19 had any neurologic manifestations.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Neurologic Features in Severe SARS-CoV-2 Infection

            To the Editor: We report the neurologic features in an observational series of 58 of 64 consecutive patients admitted to the hospital because of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) due to Covid-19. The patients received similar evaluations by intensivists in two intensive care units (ICUs) in Strasbourg, France, between March 3 and April 3, 2020. Six patients were excluded because of paralytic neuromuscular blockade when neurologic data were collected or because they had died without a neurologic examination having been performed. In all 58 patients, reverse-transcriptase–polymerase-chain-reaction (RT-PCR) assays of nasopharyngeal samples were positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The median age of the patients was 63 years, and the median Simplified Acute Physiology Score II at the time of neurologic examination was 52 (interquartile range, 37 to 65, on a scale ranging from 0 to 163, with higher scores indicating greater severity of illness). Seven patients had had previous neurologic disorders, including transient ischemic attack, partial epilepsy, and mild cognitive impairment. The neurologic findings were recorded in 8 of the 58 patients (14%) on admission to the ICU (before treatment) and in 39 patients (67%) when sedation and a neuromuscular blocker were withheld. Agitation was present in 40 patients (69%) when neuromuscular blockade was discontinued (Table 1). A total of 26 of 40 patients were noted to have confusion according to the Confusion Assessment Method for the ICU; those patients could be evaluated when they were responsive (i.e., they had a score of −1 to 1 on the Richmond Agitation and Sedation Scale, on a scale of −5 [unresponsive] to +4 [combative]). Diffuse corticospinal tract signs with enhanced tendon reflexes, ankle clonus, and bilateral extensor plantar reflexes were present in 39 patients (67%). Of the patients who had been discharged at the time of this writing, 15 of 45 (33%) had had a dysexecutive syndrome consisting of inattention, disorientation, or poorly organized movements in response to command. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain was performed in 13 patients (Figs. S1 through S3 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org). Although these patients did not have focal signs that suggested stroke, they underwent MRI because of unexplained encephalopathic features. Enhancement in leptomeningeal spaces was noted in 8 patients, and bilateral frontotemporal hypoperfusion was noted in all 11 patients who underwent perfusion imaging. Two asymptomatic patients each had a small acute ischemic stroke with focal hyperintensity on diffusion-weighted imaging and an overlapping decreased apparent diffusion coefficient, and 1 patient had a subacute ischemic stroke with superimposed increased diffusion-weighted imaging and apparent diffusion coefficient signals. In the 8 patients who underwent electroencephalography, only nonspecific changes were detected; 1 of the 8 patients had diffuse bifrontal slowing consistent with encephalopathy. Examination of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples obtained from 7 patients showed no cells; in 2 patients, oligoclonal bands were present with an identical electrophoretic pattern in serum, and protein and IgG levels were elevated in 1 patient. RT-PCR assays of the CSF samples were negative for SARS-CoV-2 in all 7 patients. In this consecutive series of patients, ARDS due to SARS-CoV-2 infection was associated with encephalopathy, prominent agitation and confusion, and corticospinal tract signs. Two of 13 patients who underwent brain MRI had single acute ischemic strokes. Data are lacking to determine which of these features were due to critical illness–related encephalopathy, cytokines, or the effect or withdrawal of medication, and which features were specific to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found

              Neurological associations of COVID-19

              Summary Background The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is of a scale not seen since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Although the predominant clinical presentation is with respiratory disease, neurological manifestations are being recognised increasingly. On the basis of knowledge of other coronaviruses, especially those that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome epidemics, cases of CNS and peripheral nervous system disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 might be expected to be rare. Recent developments A growing number of case reports and series describe a wide array of neurological manifestations in 901 patients, but many have insufficient detail, reflecting the challenge of studying such patients. Encephalopathy has been reported for 93 patients in total, including 16 (7%) of 214 hospitalised patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, and 40 (69%) of 58 patients in intensive care with COVID-19 in France. Encephalitis has been described in eight patients to date, and Guillain-Barré syndrome in 19 patients. SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the CSF of some patients. Anosmia and ageusia are common, and can occur in the absence of other clinical features. Unexpectedly, acute cerebrovascular disease is also emerging as an important complication, with cohort studies reporting stroke in 2–6% of patients hospitalised with COVID-19. So far, 96 patients with stroke have been described, who frequently had vascular events in the context of a pro-inflammatory hypercoagulable state with elevated C-reactive protein, D-dimer, and ferritin. Where next? Careful clinical, diagnostic, and epidemiological studies are needed to help define the manifestations and burden of neurological disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. Precise case definitions must be used to distinguish non-specific complications of severe disease (eg, hypoxic encephalopathy and critical care neuropathy) from those caused directly or indirectly by the virus, including infectious, para-infectious, and post-infectious encephalitis, hypercoagulable states leading to stroke, and acute neuropathies such as Guillain-Barré syndrome. Recognition of neurological disease associated with SARS-CoV-2 in patients whose respiratory infection is mild or asymptomatic might prove challenging, especially if the primary COVID-19 illness occurred weeks earlier. The proportion of infections leading to neurological disease will probably remain small. However, these patients might be left with severe neurological sequelae. With so many people infected, the overall number of neurological patients, and their associated health burden and social and economic costs might be large. Health-care planners and policy makers must prepare for this eventuality, while the many ongoing studies investigating neurological associations increase our knowledge base.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Pain Rep
                Pain Rep
                PAIREP
                Painreports
                Pain Reports
                Wolters Kluwer (Philadelphia, PA )
                2471-2531
                Jan-Feb 2021
                27 January 2021
                : 6
                : 1
                : e884
                Affiliations
                [a ]INSERM U 987, CETD, Hôpital Ambroise Paré, APHP, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
                [b ]Université Versailles Saint Quentin, Versailles, France
                [c ]Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Unit, Hôpital Raymond Poincaré, APHP, Garches, France
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. Address: INSERM U 987, CETD, Hôpital Ambroise Paré, APHP, 9 Avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France. Tel.:0033149095931; fax: 0033149094435. E-mail address: nadine.attal@ 123456aphp.fr (N. Attal).
                Article
                PAINREPORTS-D-20-0122 00015
                10.1097/PR9.0000000000000884
                7850724
                33537521
                a2f1de8b-6fc5-4758-9dd9-63c004e795d2
                Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The International Association for the Study of Pain.

                This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CCBY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 02 October 2020
                : 02 November 2020
                : 07 November 2020
                Categories
                31
                COVID-19 and pain
                Review
                Custom metadata
                TRUE

                covid-19,sars-cov-2,neurological complications,neuropathic pain,narrative review

                Comments

                Comment on this article