CNN – When Covid-19 began spreading in the United States this year, dermatology offices began to see suspicious symptoms on some patients’ skin: red or purple toes, hives, stained bumps on the fingers, a red lace rash that stretched out their legs and arms.
But were they related to the new coronavirus? After all, many other points may be at stake.
“Many viral infections can cause a rash, so when you catalog those case reports, you want to have more data. Did the patient take medications a week before the rash started? Are there other causes imaginable?” asked Dr. Art Papier, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
“That is the challenge posed by Covid-19. With these other presentations and other eruptions, is hives due to the fact that the patient has only hives or hives similar to Covid-19?”
Case reports have begun to appear in medical journals. Last Wednesday, in the journal JAMA Dermatology, describes reports of 4 severe Covid-19 patients who were admitted to New York hospitals in March and April.
Patients, ages 40 to 80, had skin discoloration and lesions called retiformed purple, according to the report.
Patients were biopsied and showed that patients had a type of vasculopathy, which meant their blood vessels were affected.
The researchers, from NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical College, wrote in their report that skin discoloration may constitute partial occlusion or blockage of blood vessels, and retiformed purple may constitute a total blockage.
Such rashes and discoloration of the skin would possibly be a “clinical indication” of blood clotting imaginable in the body, according to the study. Since the onset of the pandemic, doctors have found that severe Covid-19 can cause abnormal blood clotting in patients.
The report has some limitations, and adds the fact that scholars were unable to verify the exact timing of the first time skin rashes and other skin disorders gave each patient’s impression. In addition, additional studies are needed to determine whether similar effects would arise in a larger organization of Covid-19 patients.
However, in general, the researchers wrote in their report that doctors treating patients with Covid-19 deserve to be aware of skin discoloration and rashes as “possible manifestations” of underlying blood clotting.
”Many viral infections can affect the skin”
Doctors and researchers around the world have also reported other rashes in covid-19 patients.
Covid-19 triggers significant inflammation in its victims, generating in some cases the so-called cytokine typhoon that appears to cause the worst damage in complex patients.
The skin is sensitive to inflammation, said qualified dermatologist Dr. Seemal Desai, a spokesman for the American Academy of Dermatology.
“Cytokines that stimulate the car’s immune engine are the ones that then trigger one of those immune molecules to penetrate the skin and wreak havoc on the skin,” said Desai, a dermatologist in Plano, Texas.
In July, researchers at King’s College London in the UK called for rashes and “Hand and toe covid” to be a key symptom of Covid-19, even arguing that they can occur in the absence of other symptoms.
The main symptoms of widely accepted coronavirus are fever, cough and shortness of breath, although a number of other symptoms have been suggested. Loss of smell and taste, some other aberrant value, recently included in the list of non-unusual maximum symptoms through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kings College researchers used knowledge of the Covid-19 Symptom Study app, which is shipped through another 336,000 people in the UK. They found that 8.8% of other people who tested positive for coronavirus reported a rash as a symptom, and 5.4% of others tested negative.
The KLC team then established a separate online survey, collecting data from approximately 12,000 other people suffering from suspicious or shown Covid-19 skin rashes. Researchers found that 17% of respondents who tested positive for coronavirus reported a rash as the first symptom of the disease. For 21% of others who reported a rash and showed Covid-19, the rash is their only symptom.
Researchers reported their findings in a preprinted study published on the online server medRXiv.org. The effects have still been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
”Many viral infections can affect the skin, so it’s not unexpected that we see those rashes in Covid-19′,’ said Dr Veronique Bataille, dermatologist representing St Thomas’ Hospital and King’s College London, who participated in the pre-printing study. in a press release in July.
“However, it is vital that other people know that in some cases a rash may be the first or only symptom of the disease,” Battle said. “Then, if you notice a new rash, take it seriously by isolating yourself and getting tested as soon as possible.
Measles-like rashes and mouth rashes
Preliminary studies have warned that rashes and internal lesions of the mouth may be a symptom of coronavirus infection; however, additional studies are needed.
In May, scientists around the world conducted a review of the literature and found that the patients also had red and itchy markings and a red or pink rash that looked a lot like measles.
“It’s a reaction we call morbilishape, which means measles, which comes in the form of pink spots, masses of small pink spots all over the skin,” said Paper, a dermatologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Another published in JAMA Dermatology in July found that among 21 patients in Spain who showed Covid-19 and a rash, six or 29% of these patients had an enehem, or lesions or rash on the mouth.
The average time between the onset of Covid-19 symptoms and the progression of the enanthum is about 12 days in patients, according to researchers at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid.
“This painting describes the initial observations and is limited by the small number of cases and the absence of a control group,” the researchers wrote, adding that their findings still recommend that enanthem is an imaginable symptom of Covid-19 and not a reaction to drugs. For example.
“Despite the expansion of reports of rashes in COVID-19 patients, it is difficult to build an etiological diagnosis,” the researchers wrote. “However, the presence of enanthem is a strong clue that suggests a viral etiology than a reaction to a drug.”
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