COVID-19 infection as a systemic disease

Abstract

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 infection has had a dramatic impact on Health care systems throughout the World. Several issues concerning this disease are still unknown; in particular the involvement of extra-pulmonary tissues and how this might affect prognosis of COVID-19 infected individuals remains still debated. Further, healthcare workers should be aware of the possible atypical presentations of COVID-19 infection in order to promptly implement the appropriate measures to contain the transmission of the disease. As a consequence, all the people involved in the management of the pandemic should go beyond simply considering COVID-19 infection as a lung disease with theoretical involvement of other organs, but they should start considering it a systemic disease with major pulmonary involvement. This change of perspective would probably allow a better understanding of the clinical, pathophysiological and therapeutic characteristics of COVID-19 infection.