ArticleBMJ open respiratory research2024
Cluster analysis of long COVID in Japan and association of its trajectory of symptoms and quality of life.
Article in BMJ open respiratory research, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Intra and inter-network functional connectivity among long-Covid patients with ongoing disease duration.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Latent transition analysis for longitudinal studies of post-acute infection syndromes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Identifying subtypes of Long COVID: a systematic review.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Article
- Understanding quality-of-life patterns in long COVID: How Symptoms and socioeconomic conditions shape patient wellbeing.PloS one · 2026Observational
- Precision Symptom Phenotyping Identifies Early Clinical and Proteomic Predictors of Distinct COVID-19 Sequelae.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Prevalence of erectile dysfunction as long-COVID symptom in hospitalized Japanese patients.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of Japanese traditional medicine (Kamikihito and Saikokeishito) for treating long COVID: a prospective observational study.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Japanese nationwide survey to track the impact of long COVID over 3 years.Environmental health and preventive medicine · 2025Article
- Long COVID is not the same for everyone: a hierarchical cluster analysis of Long COVID symptoms 9 and 12 months after SARS-CoV-2 test.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Long COVID Clusters of Symptoms Persist beyond Two Years after Infection: Insights from the CARDIO COVID 20-21 Registry.Viruses · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
25 authors at 7 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMultiple prolonged symptoms observed in patients who recovered from COVID-19 are defined as long COVID. Although diverse phenotypic combinations are possible, they remain unclear. This study aimed to perform a cluster analysis of long COVID in Japan and clarify the association between its characteristics and background factors and quality of life (QOL).
methodsThis multicentre prospective cohort study collected various symptoms and QOL after COVID-19 from January 2020 to February 2021. This study included 935 patients aged ≥18 years with COVID-19 at 26 participating medical facilities. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using 24 long COVID symptom at 3 months after diagnosis.
resultsParticipants were divided into the following five clusters: numerous symptoms across multiple organs (cluster 1, n=54); no or minor symptoms (cluster 2, n=546); taste and olfactory disorders (cluster 3, n=76); fatigue, psychoneurotic symptoms and dyspnoea (low prevalence of cough and sputum) (cluster 4, n=207) and fatigue and dyspnoea (high prevalence of cough and sputum) (cluster 5, n=52). Cluster 1 included elderly patients with severe symptoms, while cluster 3 included young female with mild symptoms. No significant differences were observed in the comorbidities. Cluster 1 showed the most impaired QOL, followed by clusters 4 and 5; these changes as well as the composition of symptoms were observed over 1 year.
conclusionsWe identified patients with long COVID with diverse characteristics into five clusters. Future analysis of these different pathologies could result in individualised treatment of long COVID. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: The study protocol is registered at UMIN clinical trials registry (UMIN000042299).
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