As per research performed at Hospital das Clnicas (HC), users of liver transplantation who acquired COVID-19 healed quicker with more acute infection than cardiac or kidney donation patients, and some did worse than non-individuals. The publication Transplantology released a paper summarizing the research and its key findings.
Those who have to undergo the transplant in the phase of Covi-19 are considered more at risk due to the probabilities of infection. However, with the increasing number of requirements of such transplants, the experts also have come up with a strategy that can help the transplant recipient and protect him from probable infection. They have come up with a step-by-step strategy that helps the patients keep safe during this phase.
There Is A Treatment Strategy For COVID In Transplant Recipients
The scientists looked at COVID-19 development in 39 solid organ donation patients, 25 of whom have undergone organ transplants, so each cardiac and lung went to 7. The findings were contrasted to information from a reference sample of 25 non-transplant COVID-19 individuals who are equivalent for gender and had no illnesses.
To track illness progress, all patients in the research are tested every day for indicators of SARS-CoV-2 illness. Organs donated age and time since transplantation is used to split the participants.
“A hypothesis that could explain this unequal progression of the disease among transplant patients relates to different amounts of immune-suppressants used to prevent organ rejection,” Ricardo Wesley Alberca, the paper’s first author, told Agencia FAPESP. FAPESP has awarded Alberca a postdoctoral scholarship.
Immuno-suppressants are used in greater quantities in cardiac and kidney transplantation than in liver transplantation, for instance. “In light of this difference, besides the conclusion that not all transplant recipients respond to COVID-19 in the same manner, our study also points to a possibility of testing certain immune-suppressants to treat COVID-19 patients, whether or not they are transplant recipients,” he said.
Mild immunosuppression following SARS-CoV-2 illness, according to the FM-USP scientists, may produce good outcomes for patients. “This has yet to be investigated, but in theory, mild immunosuppression might be beneficial in cases of immune system hyper-activation, such as the so-called cytokine storm typical of severe COVID-19, where the organism responds exaggeratedly, potentially leading to death,” he said.
Individuals with comorbidity, the elderly, and transplantation patients have all been deemed high-risk populations for acute COVID-19 before the outbreak began. Transplantation patients, on the other hand, are a distinct subset of the general community, and the limited study done on them hasn’t examined the consequences of the illness in receivers of other transplants.
During the early quarter of 2020, the FM-USP investigation will be part of a larger epidemiologic investigation of further than 500 COVID-19 individuals managed at the HC. FAPESP & CAPES, the Department of Education’s Collaboration for the Development of Higher Education Workers, are both supporting it.
The scientists want to look at SARS-CoV-2 infections in people taking immunosuppressant drugs or immune-suppressants, like eczema, dermatitis, or people living with HIV/AIDS.
“We’re analyzing the impact of different comorbidities on the immune response to COVID-19, and we hope the study will lead to a better understanding of the immune-pathogenesis of the disease in association with diseases or conditions that require treatment with immune-suppressants, as do organ transplants,” said Maria Notomi Sato, a researcher at FM-USP.
Scientists from FM-Dermatology USP’s as well as Immunodeficiency Laboratory (LIM-56) as well as other organizations, including the Adolf Lutz Institute, a Biomedical Sciences Institute (ICB-USP), or the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ), a company of the Ministry of Health, are among the other writers of the essay. The researchers also want to see if there are any therapies for the inflammation illness caused by the new coronavirus.
