European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND PULMONOLOGY: A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW

Lazaro Javier Diaz Iglesias*, Okoma Shed Akolokwu, Edelyn M. Manning Pagan, Nimisha Madas, Prem Kumar Sah, Julissa Nicole Jaca Castro, Karar Alameedi, Julio Perez Rodriguez, Eli C Garcia Bautista, Agustina Rajendra Putri, Tony Alarcon, Lea Bach-Bachich, Naglaa Ghobriel, Shravanti Muthu, Anand Reddy Maligireddy, Anam Hamid, Jennis Singla and Roshan Niraula

ABSTRACT

The pandemic of the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), the causative agent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a public health emergency of international concern. The majority of the population is exhibiting signs and symptoms similar to the flu and common cold. COVID-19 affects various systems, but the respiratory system has been principally affected by the virus. Respiratory involvement in SARS-COV-2 usually corresponds to four situations: (a) respiratory manifestation of acute viral infection, (b) respiratory manifestation of post-viral infection, (c) manifestation in patients with comorbidities (d) ARDS and respiratory failure in COVID-19. The actual disease pathogenesis is the expression of the ACE2 receptor, expressed by the lower respiratory tract. These receptors are responsible for the viral invasion and subsequent progression of the disease. However, direct viral injury, inflammation due to markers, and the complement system's activation might be the contributing causes. Various respiratory manifestations have been observed and reported in many cases. Starting with mild symptoms ranging from flu, fever, cough, sore throat, dyspnea, and tachypnea, patients with lung involvement can develop pneumonia, respiratory failure, heart failure, septic shock, and death. SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has become a significant challenge for the pulmonologists specifically, considering the degree of lung damage that it causes. Most of the COVID-19 complications may be caused by a condition known as cytokine release syndrome, also referred to as cytokine storm. In this review, we have condensed the information from published literature including, case reports and open-source data sets, to describe the spectrum of respiratory manifestation and complication observed in COVID-19 cases and future prognosis.

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, infection, pandemic, coronavirus.