More than four hundred French dermatologists observed among their patients a possible new symptom for COVID-19 infection. Patients who experienced vasculitis on the tip of their fingers and who then became confirmed coronavirus patients led the physicians to publish a note in La Revue du Praticien journal. This is according to Psychology Today.
Vasculitis is the general term they used for more than just one symptom. Some of the patients experience something similar to a frostbite redness and swelling. Others complained of itchy lesions similar to eczema on the tip of their fingers or of reddened patches that were similar to urticaria on their body or face.
Those were symptoms that couldn’t be related to a specific source, nor were they proved to be the diseases they appeared to be: acrosyndrome, dyshidrosis, or urticaria. They were just patients experiencing sudden redness, swelling, or pain on their fingertips. And that later became confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Is it possible to be a new symptom of coronavirus?
The National Clinical Research Center for Dermatologic and Immunologic Disease in Beijing, China, revealed that some of the coronavirus infections are consistent with a cytokine storm that, in severe cases of coronavirus, causes lumen. Lumen is the anatomical thickening and obstruction of the vessel wall.
Cytokines are molecules secreted by our immune system that generate inflammation. They are also secreted when the body is infected with the COVID-19 virus. When the cytokines’ number is too high, they resemble a storm that can inflame our blood vessels resulting in vasculitis.
Although it sounds more than just a presumption, more research is needed to attest vasculitis as a coronavirus symptom. Nevertheless, the French dermatologists encourage people that are experiencing such symptoms to address their physicians. They also advise that, even if there are no other symptoms, people observing changes of their fingertips to engage in self-isolation, as asymptomatic patients are confirmed to exist.
