Corona25 Sep 2020 14:48
Jelly in the lungs can be treated with drugs available today
Jelly in the lungs may explain why covid-19-infected people have severe lung weight and in some cases died.
The Swedish researchers' discovery could be treated with existing drugs.
I believe in this, I have to admit it. Otherwise we would not have done this study, says Anders Blomberg, professor and chief physician at Umeå University.
In covid-19 patients who have died as a result of lung weight, the lungs have in some cases examined been filled with a transparent jelly.
Anders Blomberg, professor of pulmonary medicine and chief physician at Umeå University , can now show which substance contributes to the formation of jelly in the lungs. The substance is called hyaluronan and it is already known that hyaluronan molecules increase a lot in inflammatory conditions.
The discovery is based on analyzed autopsy material from three patients who died in covid-19. The researchers succeeded in staining the clear gel and thus demonstrating that it consisted of hyaluronan.
"Drowning from within"
- This may be an explanation for why you get lung weight. The molecule hyaluronan has an enormous ability to bind water. If it is formed in an unstoppable amount, the lungs will be filled with water. You drown, so to speak, from within, says Anders Blomberg.
Having found what may be a contributing cause of the respiratory failure opens up for treatments in the long run, he says.
- There is no drug today that is registered for lung weight in covid. But there are different models that you can imagine.
Anders Blomberg lists three possible treatments, with currently existing substances, which could be used after further studies.
- On the one hand, we know that cortisone has a positive effect in severe covid and cortisone reduces the production of hyaluronan, we already know that.
- Then there are possibilities purely theoretically that you can inhale an enzyme that breaks down the hyaluronan into smaller components and thus dissolve the gel. We do not know, because it has not been tested on humans. But theoretically it could work.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
