Coronavirus: Study finds lung abnormalities in long COVID patients with breathlessness – Times of India

Researchers from Oxford, Sheffield, Cardiff and Manchester have identified abnormalities in the lungs of long COVID patients who are experiencing breathlessness. These abnormalities can't be detected with routine tests, the researchers have said.The study uses hyperpolarized xenon MRI scans to find possible lung damage in long COVID patients who have not been hospitalised with COVID-19 but who continue to experience breathlessness. The research paper is available in medRxiv, pre-print server.The study, known as EXPLAIN, had 36 participants in its pilot stage in three broad groups: the first group is patients diagnosed with long COVID, who have been seen in long COVID clinics and who have normal CT (computerized tomography) scans; the second group is people who have been in hospital with COVID-19 and discharged more than three months previously, who have normal or nearly normal CT scans and who are not experiencing long COVID, and the third group is an age- and gender-matched control group who do not have long COVID symptoms and who have not been hospitalised with COVID-19.

In this study patients are required to lie in the MRI scanner and breathe in a litre of the inert gas xenon. Xenon behaves in a very similar way like oxygen, which helps radiologists to observe how the gas moves from the lungs into the bloodstream.

The result obtained from the pilot study shows significantly impaired gas transfer from the lungs to the bloodstream in long COVID patients.

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Coronavirus: Study finds lung abnormalities in long COVID patients with breathlessness - Times of India