Lung involvement correlates with disability in MS patients with COVID-19 pneumonia

Introduction: The visual-well aerated lung (V-WAL) is a score for the visual quantification of the well aerated lung on CT scan in COVID-19 patients and its value at admission seems to predict future COVID-19 severity. The aim of the present study was to analyze the association between V-WAL and risk factors for severe COVID-19 evolution in people with multiple sclerosis.

Materials and methods: This is an observational retrospective study, including people with multiple sclerosis and concomitant COVID-19, who were investigated with a lung CT scan at Hospital admission. The association of V-WAL with age, sex, EDSS, comorbidities, recent steroid use, and treatment (anti-CD20 vs other) was assessed by a multivariate linear regression model.

Results: In this observational retrospective study, the only factor that was significantly associated to a lower V-WAL at multivariable analysis was an increasing level of the EDSS (R² = 0.41, p = 0.001), with an average decrease of 8% of V-WAL for each additional EDSS point.

Discussion and conclusion: This analysis shows that a high EDSS level is the main factor associated to the severity of lung involvement in a group of people with multiple sclerosis who were hospitalized for Covid-19.