ArticleHistopathology2021
Progression to fibrosing diffuse alveolar damage in a series of 30 minimally invasive autopsies with COVID-19 pneumonia in Wuhan, China.
Article in Histopathology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
65 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Postmortem findings in COVID-19 fatalities: A systematic review of current evidence.Legal medicine (Tokyo, Japan) · 2022Pooled it
- Invasive mould disease in fatal COVID-19: a systematic review of autopsies.The Lancet. Microbe · 2021Pooled it
- Postmortem Findings Associated With SARS-CoV-2: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.The American journal of surgical pathology · 2021Pooled it
- Autopsy Tool in Unknown Diseases: The Experience with Coronaviruses (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2).Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pulmonary findings in COVID-19: radiology correlates with the histopathological post-mortem findings in patients with fatal acute disease.Acta radiologica (Stockholm, Sweden : 1987) · 2026Article
- Longitudinal Assessment of Chest Computed Tomographic Findings After COVID-19 Infection.Cureus · 2026Article
- Multimodal prediction of persistent pulmonary nodules after COVID-19: radiomics feature integration with clinical and epidemiologic variables.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- IL-4 and TGF-β regulate inflammatory cytokines and cellular infiltration in the lung and systemic IL-6 in mouse-adapted SARS-CoV-2 infection.ImmunoHorizons · 2025Article
- COVID-19's impact on heart and lung transplantation: Citation-based analysis of research output.World journal of transplantation · 2025Article
- Genetic and Inflammatory Signatures Associated With Worse Prognosis in Hospitalized Patients With Severe SARS-CoV-2 Infection With and Without Diabetes.Journal of medical virology · 2025Article
- Clinical and molecular landscape of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection with resistance to remdesivir in immunocompromised patients.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- A Case of Interstitial Pneumonia Leading to Respiratory Failure Several Months After COVID-19 Infection.Cureus · 2025Article
- Case Report: Pathological features of explanted native lungs in a patient with end stage lung disease after resolution of severe COVID19 who underwent successful lung transplantation.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Concordance between MITS and conventional autopsies for pathological and virological diagnoses.International journal of legal medicine · 2024Article
- Neutrophil Activity and Extracellular Matrix Degradation: Drivers of Lung Tissue Destruction in Fatal COVID-19 Cases and Implications for Long COVID.Biomolecules · 2024Article
- Radiological pulmonary sequelae after COVID-19 and correlation with clinical and functional pulmonary evaluation: results of a prospective cohort.European radiology · 2024Article
- Postmortem Minimally Invasive Autopsy in Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients at the Bedside: A Proof-of-Concept Study at the ICU.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Chronic Lung Injury after COVID-19 Pneumonia: Clinical, Radiologic, and Histopathologic Perspectives.Radiology · 2024Review
- COVID-19 induces more pronounced extracellular matrix deposition than other causes of ARDS.Respiratory research · 2023Article
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), infection has been deemed as a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation. While diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) is recognised to be the primary manifestation of COVID-19 pneumonia, there has been little emphasis on the progression to the fibrosing phase of DAD. This topic is of great interest, due to growing concerns regarding the potential long-term complications in prolonged survivors. METHODS AND
resultsHere we report a detailed histopathological study of 30 autopsy cases with COVID-19 virus infection, based on minimally invasive autopsies performed between February and March, 2020. The mean age was 69 years, with 20 (67%) males and 10 (33%) females and frequent (70.0%) underlying comorbidities. The duration of illness ranged from 16 to 82 (median = 42) days. Histologically, the most common manifestation was diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) in 28 (93.3%) cases which showed predominantly acute (32%), organising (25%) and/or fibrosing (43%) patterns. Patients with fibrosing DAD were one decade younger (P = 0.034) and they had a longer duration of illness (P = 0.033), hospitalisation (P = 0.037) and mechanical ventilation (P = 0.014) compared to those with acute DAD. Patients with organising DAD had a longer duration of illness (P = 0.032) and hospitalisation (P = 0.023) compared to those with acute DAD.
conclusionsCOVID-19 pneumonia patients who develop DAD can progress to the fibrosing pattern. While we observed fibrosing DAD in fatal cases, whether or not surviving patients are at risk for developing pulmonary fibrosis and the frequency of this complication will require further clinical and radiological follow-up studies.
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