Both asthma and COPD are reported at lower than expected levels in patients with COVID-19 say researchers, who have called for more research into the possible reasons for the finding.
It is “striking” that both COPD and asthma seem to be under-represented in COVID-19 patients when the opposite seems reasonable, they concluded in a commentary in Lancet Respiratory Medicine.
One of several possibilities is that medication – potentially inhaled corticosteroids – used in chronic respiratory disease may reduce the risk of infection or of developing symptoms, they suggest.
Speaking with the limbic, Professor David Halpin, Consultant Respiratory Physician at Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, member of the Board of Directors of GOLD, said: “The prevalence of these conditions was lower than you would expect in the recorded data.
“But if you are someone with chronic respiratory disease and you do develop COVID your outcomes are worse than people without chronic respiratory disease and you have a higher risk of dying so we have a paradox.”
The theory that inhaled corticosteroids might prevent, at least partly, symptomatic infection or severe presentations of COVID-19 “cannot be ignored”, the researchers said.
But they pointed out that the use of systemic steroids to treat established SARS showed no benefit and possible harm and the effects in COVID-19 are as yet unknown.
“There is no evidence to suggest that medications used in chronic respiratory disease affect the outcome one way or another and patients should not change their current treatment.