COVID-19 survivors with severe lung damage, also called ‘fibrotic’ lung scarring, might be cured by a new breakthrough made by Dr Ashish Patel and Dr Bijan Modarai, vascular surgeons at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS hospital, stated reports on Sunday (22).
Under the new process, a bag of blood is taken from the patient in the same way as a person donates blood. It is then spun in a lab to separate a type of white blood called a "macrophage", after which it is infused back into the patient, reports said.
Doctors believe that macrophages will gobble up the scarring of the inner surface of the lung that happens in serious cases of Covid-19.
Scarring affects the organ’s ability to function normally, reducing the amount of oxygen that can be absorbed.
Top NHS medics hope the pioneering treatment will restore most people to normal lung function by destroying scarring that leaves them struggling to breathe, Mail reported, adding that as many as two per cent of all coronavirus patients will have suffered a degree of ‘fibrotic’ lung scarring.
So far, only five patients have been treated, including a 63-year-old patient from London, who contracted Covid in March 2020. He spent almost three months at Guy’s and St Thomas’s including five weeks on a ventilator.
It is being estimated that hundreds of thousands of people may benefit from new treatment discovered by the team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, in London.
