United States – An objection is the fact that patients with Long COVID could die from the fatal lung condition is not the case, a new study finds.
As expected, the same team has developed a blood test that could lead to the identification of Long-COVID patients whose lungs may have good recovery possibility and those who may not.
Long COVID Afflicts
As revealed by the researchers at the University of Virginia Health (UVA) System, out of the people getting infected with COVID-19, about 30% will go on to develop symptoms that are associated with Long COVID.
Some patients develop stiffening or scarring of lung tissue as part of COVID or its aftermath.
Is it possible that these occurrences could cause the patient to develop the progressive pulmonary fibrosis syndrome, a condition that gradually worsens over time and complicates breathing?
Whether they do it or not is not certain; however, the UVA Health personnel followed up on the lung health of 16 people who had been hospitalized with severe COVID-19. Numbers were fourteen patients who had symptoms so bad that they had to be intubated in order to breathe.
However, some of those symptoms persisted even after they had been officially discharged from the hospital, indicating that Long COVID had also kicked in.
After six months, some patients had recovered their lung function, while others still struggled with breathlessness, with some of them ending up with pulmonary fibrosis.
Blood Test Predicts Lung Recovery
The results of blood tests, which followed levels of small cells in monocyte cells, proved helpful in predicting whose lungs recovered and those that didn’t. So, the scientists said. In the case of people who are low on the monocytes in their blood samples, their lungs are slower to recover from the illness COVID-19.
The researchers discovered that these individuals also have symptoms worse than others, which suggests that a monocyte-targeted blood test can be used to determine who will get Long COVID and who won’t.
There was more good news from the study: The research pinpoints that the immune cells of those with COVID and long COVID are seemingly injured in a very different manner from that seen in the case of patients with pulmonary fibrosis.
The research was published recently in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.
Call for Further Research
Lead researcher Dr. Catherine Bonham stated, “Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is progressive and kills patients within three to five years.” She is the scientific director of UVA Health’s Interstitial Lung Disease Program and a specialist in critical care and pulmonary medicine.
She stated in a UVA Health news release, “It was a relief to see that all of our COVID patients, even those with long-haul symptoms, were not similar” to those who have idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
“We are excited to find that people with long-haul COVID have an immune system that is totally different from people who have lung scarring that doesn’t stop,” Bonham said. “This offers hope that even patients with the worst COVID do not have progressive scarring of the lung that leads to death.”
She stressed that the study’s small size means more research needs to be done.
“We are only beginning to understand the biology of how the immune system impacts pulmonary fibrosis,” Bonham said.