16 Jul 20
I'll just dump this here:
Lung radiation shows promise for COVID-19 pneumonia; smoking raises risks
A low dose of radiation to the lungs of COVID-19 pneumonia patients can help them recover more quickly, a small study suggests. Doctors at Emory University in Atlanta treated 10 such patients with lung radiation and compared them to 10 patients of similar ages who received usual care, without radiation. With radiation, the average time to significant improvement was three days, compared to 12 days in the control group.
Other potential effects included a shorter average time to hospital discharge (12 days with radiation versus 20 days without it) and a lower risk of mechanical ventilation (10% with radiation versus 40% without it). But those two differences were too small to rule out the possibility they were due to chance, the researchers found.
The radiation group was “a little older, a little sicker, and their lungs were a little more damaged ... but despite that we saw a strong signal of efficacy,” Emory’s Dr. Mohammad Khan told Reuters.
Khan noted that in the radiation group, COVID-19 medications were withheld before and after the treatment, so the results reflect the effect of the radiation alone.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-science/lung-radiation-shows-promise-for-covid-19-pneumonia-smoking-raises-risks-idUSKCN24G2WM
16 Jul 20
"Our analysis suggests that risk from smoking and e-cigarette use is highest among young adults who are male, white, and lower income and who are fully or partially uninsured."
That is a red rag to a bull. Oh you have cancer, are you smoking? Oh you have heart disease, are you suffering from or suffered of in the past C19?
If you have answered yes to any etc......
£ & $
21 Jul 20
@Hells-Caretaker
The problem is the extreme immune response our own bodies make when confronted by C 19. If we tame that down, the victim has a much better chance of surviving.
21 Jul 20
2 edits
@sonhouse saidUnless said victim is immunosuppressed, either by chemo or post-transplant rejection lifetime medication. Kidney transplant recipients are being told that 30% of those hospitalised will die due to a lack of any immune response. For the wider population the probability is a tenth of that.
@Hells-Caretaker
The problem is the extreme immune response our own bodies make when confronted by C 19. If we tame that down, the victim has a much better chance of surviving.
21 Jul 20
@kewpie saidSo, if I understand this straight - the body has to get over the shock to the system (C19) but because this body is undergoing treatment for something that has already reduced the immune system as a way of recovery (even if they've not been already diagnosed). = higher chance of dying. There as many questions as there are answers.
Unless said victim is immunosuppressed, either by chemo or post-transplant rejection lifetime medication. Kidney transplant recipients are being told that 30% of those hospitalised will die due to a lack of any immune response. For the wider population the probability is a tenth of that.
21 Jul 20
@sonhouse saidAgree with that.
@Hells-Caretaker
The problem is the extreme immune response our own bodies make when confronted by C 19. If we tame that down, the victim has a much better chance of surviving.
21 Jul 20
1 edit
@hells-caretaker saidTransplant patients must take anti-rejection drugs which suppress the immune system, so that it's too weak to stop the virus from destroying all the organs. In practice they don't die of lung damage, they die of generalised organ failure. Chemo patients are given injections of white blood cells after treatment because chemo kills white cells. It takes months before the body can get its immune system back to normal. That's just two groups I know about personally. It's not just old people who have compromised immune systems. Then there's the cytokine storm group, who've had the most publicity but I don't know if they're as common as the media think they are.
So, if I understand this straight - the body has to get over the shock to the system (C19) but because this body is undergoing treatment for something that has already reduced the immune system as a way of recovery (even if they've not been already diagnosed). = higher chance of dying. There as many questions as there are answers.