538 Research on clinical‐paraclinical and evolutive aspects in patients with post spinal cord injury (SCI) statuses and Covid‐ 19 – a systematic literature review

Abstract

Abstract: The COVID‐19 pandemic has generated a lot of interest among doctors as well as scientists
around the world. Studies on the impact of the Covid‐19 pandemic, including in people with post
SCI sufferance, are ongoing, aiming to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of SARS‐
CoV2 in target tissues, to optimize related methods of diagnosis and treatment in both, initial and
later phases of the disease – e.g.: ”long Covid” status – and thus, to make a substantial contribution
to the quality of life improvement of the affected patients.
After using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (acronym
PRISMA) method to quest for afferent knowledge, it resulted a quite small number (12) of articles,
most of them indirectly approaching this topic. Therefore, is important to deepen this niche – which
is scarcely approached – in order to find new therapeutic approaches able to combat COVID‐19‐
associated to SCI manifestations – like, for instance, to check whether the principle of intermittent
hypoxia treatment is effective and worth to be included in the rehabilitation treatment protocols –
as neither an indubitable effective drug or vaccine, or respectively, cure for SCI, has been provided
so far.

Keywords: Spinal cord injury, Paraplegia, Tetraplegia, COVID‐19, intermittent hypoxia treatment