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Researchers from Oslo University Hospital (OUS) and Vestre Viken HF report that they have made important findings on why some patients get sicker than others from COVID-19, writes Dagens Medisin.
The Norwegian researchers note that an over-activated immune system can worsen the course of the disease and they believe this should have consequences for the way new studies will be designed and drugs evaluated.
– It’s great that Norwegian patients can contribute to discovering something that may be important in the treatment of covid-19 infection, says Søren Erik Pischke, chief physician of the Emergency Department and researcher at OUS and the University of Oslo (UiO) for Dagens Medisin.
Very important
The finding that he and his colleagues have made is basically about how sick people get COVID-19 is not related to the dose of infection they have ingested, but about how the patient’s immune system is activated from the SARS-Cov virus. -two.
– At first, we were also afraid that patients who had ingested a large dose of virus had a poor prognosis, but we found that the dose of the virus was low. We found that where the immune system was highly activated, there was a serious process in need of respiratory treatment, Pischke tells Dagbladet.
He describes the findings, now published in the acclaimed medical journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as very important.
– Our findings provide a basis for planning a larger clinical study. Medications, which can suppress this part of the immune system, have already been used in some patients with good results, but it is important that the results are verified in a larger controlled study, Pischke says.
Key component
In the research article, the Norwegian researchers describe how long-term and systemic activation of the so-called complement system, a key component in the innate immune system, occurred in 39 Norwegian patients with COVID-19 who were hospitalized.
This activation was associated with shortness of breath and respiratory failure, but drug treatment has been shown to inhibit activation.
Therefore, the researchers believe that their findings may be very important in the treatment of severe COVID-19.
– The part of the immune system that we have examined is called the complement system and is made up of proteins, which are produced in many cells and organs of our body, which constantly circulate in the blood and tissues, and therefore represent the first line of defense against invaders such as viruses and bacteria, the researchers write in an article from the Oslo University Hospital (OUS).
Medications available
Medications that reduce or block the activation of the complement system are available and approved in all countries for use in patients with certain rare diseases.
– We demonstrate for the first time that the complement system is strongly over-activated in patients who have or develop severe covid-19 disease. Thus, we have laid the scientific foundation for investigating complement system inhibitor drugs in clinical studies in COVID-19 patients, the researchers write.
