Avascular necrosis (AVN) discovered in COVID-19 recovered patients, by doctors at P. D. Hinduja Hospital & MRC, Mumbai

July 5, 2021 : Recovered from Covid-19? Well, it may not be time yet to let the guard down. Increasing number of patients are now complaining of post covid complications weeks after they have recovered from the coronavirus.

These complications have been reported as ‘Long COVID” by the scientific community wherein a patient continues to experience symptoms of the disease four to six weeks after the initial recovery and has seen complications in the lung, kidney, heart and cases of mucormycosis – headlined as ‘black fungus’.

Now for the first time in medical literature, Dr. Sanjay Agarwala, Director - Professional Services, Head - Orthopaedics & Traumatology and Dr. Mayank Vijayvargiya at P. D. Hinduja Hospital & MRC, Mumbai have recovered patients of COVID-19 being afflicted with Avascular necrosis (AVN) or Osteonecrosis – a painfully crippling condition affecting hips of patients.

The doctors have written a medical paper on their findings, which has been accepted for publication by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) case reports.

COVID survivors, who have been on steroids, and then develop hip or thigh pain - need confirmatory MRI to establish a diagnosis of AVN (osteonecrosis) of the hip. This condition can then be successfully treated and if picked up early CAN be reversed.

Dr. Sanjay Agarwala, renowned for treatment of AVN, has done extensive research on AVN and published several articles in multiple peer-reviewed international journals for over 20 years. He says that patients with early stage AVN can be successfully treated medically, without any surgery, with Bisphosphonate therapy. Surgical Intervention may be prevented.