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LONDON: A study of the lungs of people who have died from COVID-19 has found extensive and persistent lung damage in most cases and may help doctors understand what is behind a syndrome known as “COVID prolonged, “in which patients suffer from continuous symptoms for months.
The scientists leading the research said they also found some unique characteristics of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, which may explain why it can cause such harm.
“The findings indicate that COVID-19 is not simply a disease caused by the death of cells infected by the virus, but is probably the consequence of these abnormal cells persisting for long periods within the lungs,” said Mauro Giacca, professor. from King’s College. London, who co-directed the work.
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The research team analyzed lung, heart, liver and kidney tissue samples from 41 patients who died of COVID-19 at Italy’s Trieste University Hospital between February and April 2020.
In a telephone interview, Giacca said that while her research team found no obvious signs of viral infection or prolonged inflammation in other organs, they discovered “a really huge destruction of the architecture of the lungs,” with healthy tissue “almost completely replaced. by scar tissue “.
“MASSIVE” DAMAGE
“You could very well imagine that one of the reasons there are prolonged COVID cases is because there is extensive destruction of the lung (tissue),” he told Reuters. “Even if someone recovers from COVID, the damage that is done could be massive.”
Growing evidence from around the world suggests that a small proportion of people who have had COVID-19 and recovered from their initial infection may experience a variety of ongoing symptoms including fatigue, mental confusion, and shortness of breath. The condition is often called “prolonged COVID.”
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Giacca said that nearly 90 percent of the 41 patients had various unique characteristics of COVID-19 compared to other forms of pneumonia.
One was that the patients had extensive coagulation of the pulmonary arteries and veins. Another was that some lung cells were abnormally large and had many nuclei, as a result of different cells merging into individual large cells in a process known as syncytia.
The research, published in the Lancet eBioMedicine, also found that the virus itself was still present in many types of cells.
“The presence of these infected cells can cause the major structural changes seen in the lungs, which can persist for several weeks or months and could eventually explain ‘prolonged COVID,'” Giacca said.
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