RT Journal Article
T1 Rapid diagnosis and severity scale of post-COVID condition using advanced spectroscopy
A1 Antelo Riveiro, Paula
A1 Vázquez Vázquez, Manuel
A1 Domínguez Santalla, María Jesús
A1 Rodríguez Ruiz, Emilio
A1 Piñeiro Guillén, Ángel
A1 García Fandiño, Rebeca
K1 Post-COVID Condition (PCC)
K1 UV–VIS-NIR-MIR spectroscopy
K1 Machine learning
K1 Rapid diagnosis
K1 Biochemical monitoring
AB The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a persistent health challenge known as Post-COVID Condition (PCC), characterized by symptoms lasting at least three months after the initial SARS-CoV-2 infection and potentially persisting for several years. While studies on PCC using lipidomics and proteomics have been conducted, these methods are costly and time-consuming. The comprehensive analysis of UV–VIS–NIR–MIR spectroscopy is explored here as an alternative for the rapid and cheap diagnosis and quantification of the severity of PCC. Blood samples from 65 PCC patients, previously analyzed in lipidomic and proteomic studies, along with samples from 65 new patients, were examined to develop a model that quantifies the severity of PCC based solely on spectrophotometric data. Significant spectral variability was observed in the UV–VIS region, particularly between 297 and 600 nm, correlating strongly with patient symptoms. Unsupervised clustering algorithms in this spectral region effectively differentiated between asymptomatic and symptomatic patients, achieving a Jaccard similarity score of 0.667 when compared with clinical symptom classifications. Comparative analysis with proteomic and lipidomic studies indicated that UV–VIS spectroscopy captures clinically relevant biochemical information. The results of the model developed in this work to quantify the severity of PCC demonstrated robustness with new patient data, underscoring the method’s potential as a rapid, non-invasive, and cost-effective diagnostic tool. This study highlights the strengths of spectroscopic techniques, suggesting their suitability for widespread clinical application in diagnosing and monitoring PCC, and emphasizes the need for further refinement and integration of these methods into healthcare practice, particularly for their potential implementation in portable devices.
PB Elsevier
SN 1386-1425
YR 2025
FD 2025-03-05
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/42378
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/42378
LA eng
NO Antelo-Riveiro, P., Vázquez, M., Domínguez-Santalla, M. J., Rodríguez-Ruiz, E., Piñeiro, Á, & Garcia-Fandino, R. (2025). Rapid diagnosis and severity scale of post-COVID condition using advanced spectroscopy. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy, 328, 125474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2024.125474
NO This work was supported by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the ERDF (PID2019-111327GB-I00, PDC2022-133402-I00, PID2022-141534OB-I00 and CNS2023-144353), by Xunta de Galicia (ED431C 2021/21 and Centro de investigación do Sistema universitario de Galicia accreditation 2023-2027, ED431G 2023/03) and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund – ERDF). P. A.-R. thanks Xunta de Galicia for her predoctoral contract (ED481A-2024-073).
DS Minerva
RD 4 may 2026