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Using a new diagnostic method, British researchers have discovered lung lesions in patients who have been ill long-term with COVID-19, lesions that cannot be detected with conventional methods.
By allowing patients to inhale the xenon gas while being photographed with an MRI camera, researchers at the University of Oxford in the UK have discovered lung lesions in patients who have been ill for a long time with COVID-19, lesions that they cannot be detected with conventional methods.
A test that can detect this type of lung injury is supposed to be of great importance for all patients suffering from long-term symptoms of Covid-19, without having been so seriously ill as to need hospital care.
In the current study, ten patients between the ages of 19 and 69 were examined, each of the eight had recurring problems with breathing and fatigue three months after developing COVID-19. None of the patients had been treated in hospital for infection. Conventional examination methods had also failed to detect defects in the lungs.
Teacher: Serious Wounds
In the eight with respiratory problems, lung damage was detected, to the extent that the researchers were able to clearly identify areas in the lungs where inhaled air was not flowing into the blood as it should.
“I was expecting to see some kind of lung damage, but not as serious as this,” Professor Fergus Gleeson, who led the acclaimed study, told BBC News.
He believes injuries like these may be an explanation for the long-term symptoms that some patients who have had COVID-19 say they experience.
Fergus Gleeson wants to go further and test the method in a larger group of patients with long-term symptoms after COVID-19.
You walk on gas
The new imaging technology has been developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield. Therefore, the starting point is xenon gas, which is a colorless and odorless noble gas that is present in small amounts in the atmosphere. Patients are allowed to inhale the gas, while images of the lungs are taken with a “normal” MRI camera.
– We have shown in other fibrotic lung diseases that this method is very sensitive in detecting this type of lung damage, says James Wild, a professor at the University of Sheffield, who led the research.
The Swedish National Board of Social and Medical Assessment (SBU) stated as recently as Tuesday that there is scientific support for the symptoms that many with long-term problems after covid-19 say they experience, while much more research is needed regarding it. these patients.
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