ArticleImmunity & ageing : I & A2022
Shorter telomere length is associated with COVID-19 hospitalization and with persistence of radiographic lung abnormalities.
Article in Immunity & ageing : I & A, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Infection and telomere length: A systematic review.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Telomere length in subjects with and without SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Revista da Associacao Medica Brasileira (1992) · 2024Pooled it
- Is COVID-19 severity associated with telomere length? A systematic review and meta-analysis.Virus genes · 2023Pooled it
- COVID-19 Is Airborne AIDS: Provocative Oversimplification, Emerging Science, or Something in Between?AJPM focus · 2026Review
- Leukocyte telomere dynamic change in patients with mild to moderate covid-19 during three weeks of follow-up: Relation with therapy.Journal of medical biochemistry · 2026Article
- Telomere Length and COVID-19 Severity: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study Across the Clinical Spectrum.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- From Tissue to Transcriptome: A Systematic Review of Multi-Level Evidence for Immune Dysregulation in Atrial Fibrillation.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- Identification of Age-Related Characteristic Genes Involved in Severe COVID-19 Infection Among Elderly Patients Using Machine Learning and Immune Cell Infiltration Analysis.Biochemical genetics · 2025Article
- Associations of epigenetic aging with self-rated health, access to care, and healthcare utilization in a representative sample of United States adults.Clinical epigenetics · 2025Article
- Telomere length and COVID-19 disease severity: insights from hospitalized patients.Frontiers in aging · 2025Article
- Association of leukocyte telomere length and HbA1c with post-COVID-19 syndrome in type 2 diabetes: a cross-sectional pilot study.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Causal association and shared genetics between telomere length and COVID-19 outcomes: New evidence from the latest large-scale summary statistics.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2024Article
- Exploring the Relationship between Telomere Length and Cognitive Changes in Post-COVID-19 Subjects.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Longer ICU stay and invasive mechanical ventilation accelerate telomere shortening in COVID-19 patients 1 year after recovery.Critical care (London, England) · 2024Article
- The Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Therapeutic Potential of Cell-Free DNA with a Special Focus on COVID-19 and Other Viral Infections.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Ultra-rare RTEL1 gene variants associate with acute severity of COVID-19 and evolution to pulmonary fibrosis as a specific long COVID disorder.Respiratory research · 2023Article
- Association between leukocyte telomere length and COVID-19 severity.The Egyptian journal of medical human genetics · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAge and comorbidity are the main determinants of COVID-19 outcome. Shorter leukocyte telomere length (TL), a hallmark of biological aging, has been associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes. We sought to determine TL in patients with severe COVID-19 requiring hospitalization to analyze whether clinical outcomes and post-COVID-19 manifestations are associated with shorter TL.
resultsWe analyzed 251 patients with PCR-confirmed COVID-19, hospitalized in the first months of the pandemics. We determined TL in PBL at admission by quantitative-PCR (qPCR) analysis in patients. A healthy cohort from the same area with a similar age range (n = 169) was used to calculate TL Z-scores. After hospital discharge, 144 COVID-19 survivors were followed-up for persistent COVID-19 manifestations. A second TL determination was performed in a smaller group of 63 patients 1 year later and compared with baseline TL. Hospitalized COVID-19 patients had a decreased baseline age-adjusted TL Z-score compared to the reference group. No differences in Z-scores were observed in patients with different COVID-19 outcomes, classified as WHO ordinal scores. In 144 patients, followed for a median of 8 months, post-COVID manifestations were not associated to differences in TL. Persistence of lung radiographic abnormalities was associated with shorter baseline TL. In patients with a second TL determination, further telomere shortening (TS) was observed in 35% and telomere lengthening in 49%. Patients with further TS had suffered a more severe disease.
conclusionShorter TL is associated with COVID-19 hospitalization but not with hospital clinical outcomes nor with persistent post-COVID-19 manifestations. Delayed resolution of radiographic lung abnormalities was also associated with shorter TL.
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