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The last will be first, unless they decide to remain last. The health of Calabria, historical background in the national rankings, the March 27 had managed to play a role of absolute importance in the international medical scene when, thanks to collaboration between the Cosenza hospital and the University of Catanzaro, at the Annunziata hospital the experimentation of a drug, normally used to immunohematological therapies and for this reason known almost only by experts in the sector, in the treatment against Covid-19. In the first Western nation to have to deal with the new coronavirus, no one had been officially authorized to attempt it until then..
The idea of following this path came to two hematologists from the Brutio hospital, Francesco Mendicino me Cirino Botta, already a teacher from Magna Graecia, Marco Rossi. And both the Year – the commissioner was already Giuseppina Panizzoli, the medical director instead the current number one of the ASP, Simonetta Cinzia Bettelini – that the Region, supported by the approval of the evidence that came from the Spallanzani Institute, married it to an official press release underlining the Calabrian primacy. Proud words that instilled hope for the future, strengthened a few days after the announcements of the first improvements from one of the patients who had agreed to undergo this new treatment. All, in the following weeks, returned home healthy..
An idea to empty intensive care
The molecule in question is called Ruxolitinib and acts on the immune system when under stress, preventing the appearance of a deadly cytokine storm inside the patient’s body. Simplifying the concept to the maximum: it prevents inflammation of the internal organs from causing their collapse. It can happen, for example, after a bone marrow transplant, one of the typical contexts in which ruxolitinib is used to counter any rejection. And this is what often happens to those who contract Covid-19, with the now infamous interstitial pneumonia that forced thousands of Italians to cross the threshold of the departments of intensive care scattered throughout the Peninsula or, worse still, killed.
Ruxolitinib it does not serve to negativeize a positiveBut it seems to help the lungs and other organs resist the worst of the virus. The breathing of those who took it has improved until they become independent again and when this happens the patient no longer has to occupy one of the beds intended for the most seriously ill. Those few places, that is, Calabria should have increased in number but have remained the same, or almost the same, in the past during the lack of adaptation from the health network to the needs dictated by the pandemic.
Studies in the rest of the world
However, the spotlight on the pioneering experimentation of the Annunziata has been turned off. The latter, having savored the air of primacy, have disappeared from the last floors of the ranking, traditions are not renounced. It is not a published figure and no more press releases. In this regard, while in the rest of the world, in hospitals and universities of absolute prestige, articles on this drug were multiplying. In China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and in several Italian regions, experiments with ruxolitinib continued. The results? To take with tweezers, as for any test that took place with shorter timescales compared to traditional ones due to the pandemic emergency, but very encouraging waiting for more in-depth studies: a few weeks ago the important scientific journal Leukemia published one carried out in Bergamo on 75 patients in which a significant reduction in mortality (-70%), without significant side effects, among those treated with ruxolitinib.
Sometimes they come back …
Why then the Year of Cosenza has never shared the results of his experiment made between the end of March and the middle of April? Good (as evidenced by the discharge of patients in treatment) or bad, the data obtained, although limited to a small sample of treated people, they could still be useful to the research worldespecially at a time like the first wave when every doctor on the planet was sailing in sight. The mystery of the unexpected silence has deepened in recent days, when another leading scientific journal, Frontiers, agreed to host a new article.
This is a clinical case that illustrates the positive evolution of the clinical picture of a Covid patient until discharge from Germaneto University Polyclinic, where he was admitted to the room directed by the teacher Federico Longhini. However, not just any patient for more than one reason: it is the first in the world who was administered ruxolitinib when already intubated and, above all, is one of the participants in the trial started in the Annunziata but transferred to therapy started in the Catanzaro area. The “movement” we have just mentioned meant that the last option on the publication of the collected data no longer corresponded to Ao bruzia, but to the university of the regional capital.
But the article on Frontiers has other links with the Cosentino hospital in addition to the place of origin of the patient: to sign it, among others, are the Chief of Resuscitation in Cosenza, Pine easter, the current Covid Manager of the Annunciation, Francesco Cesario, and especially Mendicino and Botta, explicitly indicated as lead authors … (CONTINUED)
