People who experience shortness of breath for a long time after suffering a coronavirus infection are likely to experience long-term effects of COVID-19. In the lungs of such patients, doctors found abnormalities during MRI scans, calling them signs of a “long covid” that can live in the body for a year.
Sky News writes about this with reference to studies by scientists at Oxford University, in which 36 people take part (later the sample will be expanded to 400 patients). They checked MRI imaging of the lungs using hyperpolarized xenon – the patients inhaled it like oxygen while they lay in the scanner, and the doctors observed gas exchange in the lung alveoli. They concluded that this process is impaired in patients with “long covid”, that is, they have a poor transfer of gas from the lungs to the bloodstream.
Xenon made it possible to identify this anomaly, despite the fact that no problems were found during the tomographic examination. “These patients have never been hospitalized with COVID-19 and did not have a severe course of the disease. Some of the symptom (shortness of breath) persisted for a year after the initial infection with covid,” says Professor Fergus Gleason from the University of Oxford. “Now we have to answer to a number of important questions, such as what percentage of patients with long-term covid will have abnormal MRI scans, as well as what the extent of these abnormalities, causes and long-term consequences.
Shortness of breath remains one of the most common complaints in patients who have had a coronavirus infection over the past two years. Doctors recommend monitoring such symptoms and contacting your doctor for diagnosis and evaluation of the condition. To reduce the risk of a severe course of the disease, as well as post-COVID complications, it is recommended to get vaccinated against COVID-19.