What’s even more interesting is that these swollen lymph nodes can show up in a mammogram even if women can’t feel them. That prompted the Society of Breast Imaging to recommend that women postpone any mammography scheduled within four weeks after their final COVID-19 shot.
Dermatology experts say one of the challenges around the toe lesions is that the knowledge is continuing to evolve around how they counsel patients regarding quarantine at this time.
People should be following CDC and local guidelines in terms of self-isolating, regardless. We know that some patients who develop the pernio-like lesions of their feet are still infectious, because they are testing PCR positive for the virus.
This means that there is a potential risk of transmitting the virus to others. It seems that some people may develop these lesions while they are still infectious, while others may develop them somewhat later in the disease course.
We need more data on the timing of these pernio-like lesions so we can better guide our providers on how to counsel their patients. That is an area we are actively working on.
This has public health implications because if your patient is potentially still infectious when their toes are purple, that is a different story than if they are not infectious and they are already basically over the infectious stage of the virus.
Bottom line: ask your doctor no matter of the symptoms or part of the body the symptoms appear.
One patient in a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was initally leary of getting his feet and toes checked out because of his previous underlying condition of prostate cancer.
According to the NIH, among tumor types, prostate cancer and COVID-19 share several risk factors, and the interaction of prostate cancer and COVID-19 is purported to have an adverse outcome. The study concluded that hospitalization and mortality rates were higher in prostate cancer patients with COVID-19 when compared with COVID-19 patients with non-prostate genitourinary (GU) malignancies.