1. Home
  2. Publications

Publications

More than 50 long‑term effects of COVID‑19: a systematic review and meta‑analysis

Author/s: 
S., Wegman-Ostrosky, T., Perelman, C., Sepulveda, R., Rebolledo, P. A., Cuapio, A., Villapol, S.

COVID-19 can involve persistence, sequelae, and other medical complications that last weeks to
months after initial recovery. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to identify studies
assessing the long-term efects of COVID-19. LitCOVID and Embase were searched to identify articles
with original data published before the 1st of January 2021, with a minimum of 100 patients. For
efects reported in two or more studies, meta-analyses using a random-efects model were performed
using the MetaXL software to estimate the pooled prevalence with 95% CI. PRISMA guidelines were
followed. A total of 18,251 publications were identifed, of which 15 met the inclusion criteria. The
prevalence of 55 long-term efects was estimated, 21 meta-analyses were performed, and 47,910
patients were included (age 17–87 years). The included studies defned long-COVID as ranging from 14
to 110 days post-viral infection. It was estimated that 80% of the infected patients with SARS-CoV-2
developed one or more long-term symptoms. The fve most common symptoms were fatigue (58%),
headache (44%), attention disorder (27%), hair loss (25%), and dyspnea (24%). Multi-disciplinary
teams are crucial to developing preventive measures, rehabilitation techniques, and clinical
management strategies with whole-patient perspectives designed to address long COVID-19 care.

Keywords 
COVID-19 Effects meta-analysis Post-Viral Infection

Living Systematic Review on Cannabis and Other Plant-Based Treatments for Chronic Pain - Quarterly Progress Report: May 2021

Author/s: 
M. S., Wagner, J., Ahmed, A. Y., Morasco, B., Kansagara, D., Chou, R.

This is the third quarterly progress report for an ongoing living systematic review on
cannabis and other plant-based treatments for chronic pain. The first progress report was
published in January 2021 and the second in March 2021. The draft systematic review was
available for public comment from May 19 through June 15, 2021, on the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ) Effective Health Care website. The systematic review synthesizes
evidence on the benefits and harms of plant-based compounds (PBCs), such as cannabinoids and
kratom, used to treat chronic pain, addressing concerns about severe adverse effects, abuse,
misuse, dependence, and addiction.
The purpose of this progress report is to describe the cumulative literature identified thus far.
This report will be periodically updated with new studies as they are published and identified,
culminating in an annual systematic review that provides a synthesis of the accumulated
evidence.

Living Systematic Review on Cannabis and Other Plant-Based Treatments for Chronic Pain - Quarterly Progress Report: December 2020

Author/s: 
McDonagh, M. S., Wagner, J., Ahmed, A. Y., Morasco, B., Kansagara, D., Chou, R.

This is the first progress report for an ongoing living systematic review on plant-based
treatments for chronic pain. The systematic review will synthesize evidence on the benefits and
harms of plant-based compounds (PBCs) such as cannabinoids and kratom used to treat chronic
pain, addressing concerns about severe adverse effects, abuse, misuse, dependence, and
addiction.
The purpose of this progress report is to describe the body of literature identified thus far.
This report will be periodically updated with new studies as they are published and identified,
culminating in a systematic review that provides a synthesis of the accumulated evidence.

The Potential Emergence of Disease-Modifying Treatments for Alzheimer Disease: The Role of Primary Care in Managing the Patient Journey

Author/s: 
Lam, J., Hlávka, J., Mattke, S.

Despite recent setbacks, disease-modifying treatments (DMTs) for Alzheimer disease (AD) might become available within a few years. These DMTs are likely to be used in the early stages of AD to avoid the progression to manifest dementia, which implies that a large reservoir of prevalent cases would need to be evaluated when DMTs first become available. Primary care providers (PCPs) would play a vital role in managing the patient flow to specialty care. We review the literature on diagnostic tests that could be used by PCPs and estimate the impact of different testing approaches on demand for specialty care.While many tests have been evaluated, only the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) perform acceptably for detection of early-stage cognitive decline with sensitivities and specificities of 55% to 82% and 72% to 84%, respectively, for the MMSE; and 77% to 96% and 73% to 95%, respectively, for the MoCA. However, neither test is sufficiently specific for the AD pathology and would result in 4 to 5 false positives for each true positive. Blood-based tests for AD biomarkers may soon become available for clinical use. A plasma amyloid-β (Aβ) test has been shown to have a sensitivity of up to 97% and specificity of up to 81%. Adding this test to the MMSE or MoCA could reduce false positives by approximately 80%.These findings suggest a combination of brief cognitive tests and blood-based biomarker tests will allow PCPs to identify patients with potential early stage AD efficiently and triage them for further evaluation.

Keywords 
Alzheimer Disease
Subscribe to Publications