Follow-up study on serum cholesterol profiles in recovered COVID-19 patients

Li, G.; Du, L.; Cao, X.; Wei, X.; Jiang, Y.; Lin, Y.; Nguyen, V.; Tan, W.; Wang, H.

COVID-19 patients develop hypolipidemia. However, it is unknown whether lipid levels have improved in recovered patients. In this study, a 3-6 month follow-up study was performed to examine serum levels of laboratory values in 107 discharged COVID-19 patients (mild = 59; severe/critical = 48; diagnoses on admission). 61 patients had a revisit chest CT scan. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to analyze changes in laboratory values. LDL-c and HDL-c levels were significantly higher at follow-up than at admission in severe/critical cases (p < 0.05). LDL-c levels were significantly higher at follow-up than at admission in mild cases (p < 0.05). With adjustment of the factor of traditional Chinese medicine, LDL-c and HDL-c levels were significantly improved at follow-up than at admission in severe/critical cases (p < 0.05). Increases in HDL-c significantly correlated with increases in numbers of white blood cells (p<0.001) and decreases in levels of C-reactive protein (p < 0.05) during patients' recovery. Residue lesions were observed in CT images in 69% (42 of 61) of follow-up patients. We concluded that improvements of LDL-c, HDL-c and incomplete absorption of lung lesions were observed at follow-up for recovered patients, indicating that a long-term recovery process could be required.