Cohort Profile: Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 study (PHOSP-COVID)

Abstract

● PHOSP-COVID is a national UK multi-centre cohort study of patients who were hospitalised for COVID-19 and subsequently discharged. ● PHOSP-COVID was established to investigate the medium- and long-term sequelae of severe COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation, understand the underlying mechanisms of these sequelae, evaluate the medium- and long-term effects of COVID-19 treatments, and to serve as a platform to enable future studies, including clinical trials. ● Data collected covered a wide range of physical measures, biological samples, and Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). ● Participants could join the cohort either in Tier 1 only with remote data collection using hospital records, a PROMs app and postal saliva sample for DNA, or in Tier 2 where they were invited to attend two specific research visits for further data collection and biological research sampling. These research visits occurred at five (range 2-7) months and 12 (range 10-14) months post-discharge. Participants could also participate in specific nested studies (Tier 3) at selected sites. ● All participants were asked to consent to further follow-up for 25 years via linkage to their electronic healthcare records and to be re-contacted for further research. ● In total, 7935 participants were recruited from 83 UK sites: 5238 to Tier 1 and 2697 to Tier 2, between August 2020 and March 2022. ● Cohort data are held in a Trusted Research Environment and samples stored in a central biobank. Data and samples can be accessed upon request and subject to approvals.

Large scale phenotyping of long COVID inflammation reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease

“…EDTA plasma was collected from whole blood taken by venepuncture and frozen at -80°C as previously described. 8 Nasal fluid was collected using a NasosorptionTM FX•I device (Hunt Developments UK Ltd), which uses a synthetic absorptive matrix to collect concentrated nasal fluid. Samples were stored and eluted as previously described.…”

Large scale phenotyping of long COVID inflammation reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease after COVID-19 hospitalisation

“…EDTA plasma was collected from whole blood taken by venepuncture and frozen at -80°C as previously described. 14,15 Nasal uid was collected using a NasosorptionTM FX•I device (Hunt Developments UK Ltd), which uses a synthetic absorptive matrix to collect concentrated nasal uid. Samples were eluted and stored as previously described.…”

“…Elevated IL-6 and markers of mucosal in ammation were observed in those with severe long COVID compared to individuals with milder symptoms. 14,15 Long COVID is a heterogenous condition, that is not well de ned, and it remains unclear if there are in ammatory changes speci c to symptom type, when compared to recovered controls.…”

“…Elevated IL-6 and markers of mucosal in ammation were observed in those with severe long COVID compared to individuals with milder symptoms. 14,15 Long COVID is a heterogenous condition, that is not well de ned, and it remains unclear if there are in ammatory changes speci c to symptom type, when compared to recovered controls.Many long COVID symptoms have been described, most commonly breathlessness, fatigue, memory impairment and gastrointestinal (GI) disturbance. [16][17][18] There are reports of SLE-like autoantibodies in individuals with GI symptoms, whilst Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) reactivation has been associated with fatigue and neurological symptoms, 6,[19][20][21] suggesting that distinct mechanisms might cause different symptom patterns and that these might be revealed by analysis of in ammatory markers.…”