In a new study from Sheffield, Oxford, Cardiff and Manchester, researchers found abnormalities in the lungs of long COVID patients who are experiencing breathlessness that cannot be detected with routine tests.
They examined possible lung damage in long COVID patients who have not been hospitalized with COVID-19 but who continue to experience breathlessness.
A previous study had found that there were persistent lung abnormalities in patients who had been hospitalized with COVID-19 several months after they were discharged.
Hyperpolarised xenon MRI is a safe scanning test that requires the patient to lie in the MRI scanner and breathe in one liter of the inert gas xenon that has been hyperpolarised so that it can be seen using MRI.
As xenon behaves in a very similar way to oxygen, radiologists can observe how the gas moves from the lungs into the bloodstream.
The scan takes just a few minutes and, as it does not require radiation exposure, it can be repeated over time to see changes to the lungs.
While the full EXPLAIN study will recruit around 400 participants, this initial pilot had 36 people taking part.
The team found that there is strongly impaired gas transfer from the lungs to the bloodstream in these long COVID patients when other tests are normal.
These patients have never been in hospital and did not have an acute severe illness when they had their COVID-19 infection. Some of them have been experiencing their symptoms for a year after contracting COVID-19.
The team says there are now important questions to answer.
Such as, how many patients with long COVID will have abnormal scans, the significance of the abnormality we’ve detected, the cause of the abnormality, and its longer-term consequences.
Once researchers understand the mechanisms driving these symptoms, they will be better placed to develop more effective treatments.
If you care about COVID, please read studies that more than one third of COVID-19 patients suffer from ‘long-COVID’, and these existing drugs can kill COVID-19 virus.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about new drug combo that could effectively treat COVID-19 infection, and results showing a new way to prevent many COVID-19 variant.
The study is published on the bioRxiv and was conducted by Professor Jim Wild et al.
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