AccScience Publishing / AN / Volume 3 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.36922/an.2878
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Blood serum biomarkers in the dynamics of treatment for cerebrovascular pathology in post-COVID-19 patients

Victoria V. Sokolik1* Victoria V. Bokatueva1 Vladyslav M. Mishchenko1
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1 Institute of Neurology, Psychiatry and Narcology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, Kharkiv, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine
Advanced Neurology 2024, 3(2), 2878 https://doi.org/10.36922/an.2878
Submitted: 2 February 2024 | Accepted: 18 June 2024 | Published: 27 June 2024
© 2024 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Neurological manifestations after COVID-19 infections can be attributed to chronic immune and inflammatory reactions induced by SARS-CoV-2, as well as endothelial dysfunction and other vascular issues. This study included 24 patients with cerebrovascular disease (CVD) who had contracted COVID-19 1 – 1.5 years before the examination (experimental group) and 20 patients with CVD who had not previously been infected with the coronavirus (comparison group). Both groups were representative in terms of age and gender. Blood serum biomarkers, including interleukin (IL)-6, endothelin-1 (ET-1), and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), were tested before and after a 14-day standard complex therapy in the hospital at our institute using appropriate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay reagent kits. Increases in the levels of IL-6 (by 20%), ET-1 (by 200%), and VEGF-A (by 100%) were observed in patients with CVD who had contracted COVID-19 1 – 1.5 years earlier compared to the comparison group. The effectiveness of a 2-week therapeutic intervention in patients with a history of COVID-19 was found only for VEGF-A: its serum level decreased twofold, leading to the normalization of this indicator. The concentrations of IL-6 and ET-1 were not affected by the treatment. In addition, the serum levels of ET-1 and VEGF-A in unvaccinated individuals exceeded those in vaccinated patients.

Keywords
Cerebrovascular disease
COVID-19
Interleukin-6
Endothelin-1
VEGF-A
Treatment
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Advanced Neurology, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9619 Print ISSN: 3060-8589, Published by AccScience Publishing