TY - JOUR T1 - Pulmonary fibrosis 4 months after COVID-19 is associated with severity of illness and blood leucocyte telomere length JF - Thorax JO - Thorax DO - 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2021-217031 SP - thoraxjnl-2021-217031 AU - Claire F McGroder AU - David Zhang AU - Mohammad A Choudhury AU - Mary M Salvatore AU - Belinda M D'Souza AU - Eric A Hoffman AU - Ying Wei AU - Matthew R Baldwin AU - Christine Kim Garcia Y1 - 2021/04/29 UR - http://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2021/04/28/thoraxjnl-2021-217031.abstract N2 - The risk factors for development of fibrotic-like radiographic abnormalities after severe COVID-19 are incompletely described and the extent to which CT findings correlate with symptoms and physical function after hospitalisation remains unclear. At 4 months after hospitalisation, fibrotic-like patterns were more common in those who underwent mechanical ventilation (72%) than in those who did not (20%). We demonstrate that severity of initial illness, duration of mechanical ventilation, lactate dehydrogenase on admission and leucocyte telomere length are independent risk factors for fibrotic-like radiographic abnormalities. These fibrotic-like changes correlate with lung function, cough and measures of frailty, but not with dyspnoea. ER -