A study of nearly 337,000 patients shows that rashes and inflammation of the skin, especially on the fingers and toes, are indeed a symptom of Covid-19. For 21% of patients, these eruptions are even the only clinical sign of the disease.
- Conducted among nearly 337,000 patients with Covid-19, the study shows that the disease caused very diverse skin symptoms in 17% of respondents.
- In 21% of patients, skin inflammation, sometimes severe, was even the only clinical symptom observed.
Red and swollen toes, purplish lesions appearing on the thighs, hives or even rashes with blisters on the hands. Although very diverse, these skin symptoms are all due to the same disease: Covid-19.
This is revealed by a large study of 336,847 people who used the COVID Symptom Study application, the results of which have just been published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
17% of Covid patients concerned
Already last November, Esther Freeman, principal investigator of the registry and director of global health dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, questioned the appearance of a syndrome called “Covid toe”. She said in a statement that “In some patients with Covid-19, inflammation develops in the toes, which gives the skin a red color and swollen toes – they can then turn blue or purple. This symptom lasts for 15 days on average; but in patients with persistent Covid-19, it may last for several months.”
This new case collection survey from images and clinical data shows that the symptoms are even more widespread. Thus, among online respondents, 17% of Covid-19 cases reported rashes as the first symptom of the disease. For 21% of them, these eruptions were even the only clinical sign of the disease.
Various skin rashes
Among the lesions observed are erythema with vesicles or pustules (19% of cases), but also other vesicular eruptions (9% of cases), urticarial lesions (19%), maculopapular eruptions (47%) and , in 6% of cases, necrosis.
If vesicular eruptions appear early in the course of the disease (in 15% of cases, it is the first symptom), erythema with vesicles, called pseudofrostbite, appears later in the course Covid-19 (in 59% of cases after other symptoms). Other rashes tend to appear with other symptoms.
“Skin manifestations of Covid-19 are sometimes the first or even the only sign of SARS-CoV-2 infection, underlines the lead author of the study, Mario Falchi, of King’s College London. Recognizing these early signs and symptoms of Covid-19 can identify missed cases when relying on primary symptoms alone, allowing preventative measures to be put in place to minimize the spread of infection. “
The researchers now hope that this accurate description of the skin manifestations associated with Covid-19 can help clinicians recognize cases with few symptoms. “We suggest that further research could be improved by having more tests to confirm Covid-19 and to rule out other infections, and by describing the clinicopathologic correlation and some of the patterns that were pooled in our study”conclude the researchers.
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