Post-COVID lungs worse than the worst smokers' lungs, surgeon says - WLTX.com
Post-COVID lungs worse than the worst smokers' lungs, surgeon says - WLTX.com |
| Post-COVID lungs worse than the worst smokers' lungs, surgeon says - WLTX.com Posted: 25 Jan 2021 01:36 PM PST  A Texas dr. says patients who've had COVID-19 symptoms show severe chest X-rays every time. Those who were asymptomatic show a severe chest X-ray 70%-80% of the time DALLAS — A Texas trauma surgeon says it's rare that X-rays from any of her COVID-19 patients come back without dense scarring. Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall tweeted, "Post-COVID lungs look worse than any type of terrible smoker's lung we've ever seen. And they collapse. And they clot off. And the shortness of breath lingers on... & on... & on." "Everyone's just so worried about the mortality thing and that's terrible and it's awful," she told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth. "But man, for all the survivors and the people who have tested positive this is — it's going to be a problem." Bankhead-Kendall, an assistant professor of surgery with Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, has treated thousands of patients since the pandemic began in March. She says patients who've had COVID-19 symptoms show a severe chest X-ray every time, and those who were asymptomatic show a severe chest X-ray 70% to 80% of the time. "There are still people who say 'I'm fine. I don't have any issues,' and you pull up their chest X-ray and they absolutely have a bad chest X-ray," she said. RELATED: People without symptoms transmitting more than half of new COVID-19 infections, study finds In X-ray photos of a normal lung, a smoker's lung and a COVID-19 lung that Bankhead-Kendall shared with CBS Dallas, the healthy lungs are clean with a lot of black, which is mainly air. In the smoker's lung, white lines are indicative of scarring and congestion, while the COVID lung is filled with white. "You'll either see a lot of that white, dense scarring or you'll see it throughout the entire lung. Even if you're not feeling problems now, the fact that that's on your chest X-ray — it sure is indicative of you possibly having problems later on," she said. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CBSN that some patients with severe COVID-19 could feel the impact for years to come. "When someone recovers from pneumonia, whether it's a bacterial pneumonia or a viral pneumonia, it's going to take some time for their chest X-rays to improve. Chest X-rays lag your clinical improvement. So you may be better, but your chest X-ray still looks bad," he said. "And we know that people with COVID-19 can get severe pneumonia, and some of that pneumonia will lead to damage to the lungs that will take time to heal. And some of it may be permanent." He said the potential long-term health consequences are another reason people should take warnings about the disease seriously. "It's not something you can blow off. This isn't something you want to have. Because even if you survive, you still may be left with some severe complications that make it very hard for you to go back to your baseline functioning." Bankhead-Kendall said it's important that if you're experiencing shortness of breath after your COVID-19 goes away, you stay in touch with your primary care doctor. She also points out, "There is no long-term implication of a vaccine that could ever be as bad as the long-term implications of COVID." |
| Fact check: COVID-19 can cause worse lung damage than smoking - USA TODAY Posted: 26 Jan 2021 11:58 AM PST CLOSE  Here's how mRNA viruses like COVID-19 mutate, and why certain viruses are harder to develop vaccines for. USA TODAY The claim: COVID-19 infection can leave worse lung damage than smokingNew COVID-19 cases may be on the decline — down 21% in the last two weeks, the New York Times reports — but the effects of the viral contagion are far from over, one Instagram post claims. "COVID-19 can cause worse lung damage than heavy smoking," states the Jan. 21 post shared by The Unbiased Science Podcast. The post includes an image of three lung X-rays that each depict a white cloudiness worsening as it goes from a normal to smoker's to a COVID-19 infected lung. That the novel coronavirus can cause lung damage is nothing new. The post claims a radiological finding called ground-glass opacities are typically found on chest X-rays of COVID-19 patients and that "50-80%" of these patients are reported to have lung damage. What is concerning is the "extent of these sequelae (aftereffects of a disease) and how long they may persist" since "clinicians have reported this type of lung scarring is present" long after COVID-19 infection, The Unbiased Science Podcast states. Fact check: Not likely that COVID-19 vaccine was cause of Hank Aaron's death COVID-19 can cause significant lung damageThe chest X-rays shared by The Unbiased Science Podcast were captured by Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall, assistant professor of surgery at Texas Tech University, who observed this phenomena among her own patients. "I don't know who needs to hear this, but 'post-COVID' lungs look worse than ANY type of terrible smoker's lung we've ever seen," she tweeted on Jan. 4. A chest X-ray of a healthy individual looks like the negative of a black-and-white photo with the lungs appearing dark and shadowed because of the air inside and the surrounding bones, organs and muscles colored white. Anything that occupies the lung's airspace — whether it be fluid, masses, tissue scarring or other artifacts — casts a white haze, depending on density. Speaking to CBS Dallas-Fort Worth, Bankhead-Kendall compared a chest X-ray of a smoker's lung, littered with white lines indicative of scarring and congestion, to that of a COVID-19 infected lung with the same scarring but more of it throughout the entire lung. Chest X-rays of asymptomatic patients — those infected but without symptoms — exhibited a severe chest X-ray 70-80% of the time, but those with COVID-19 symptoms had one every time, she also added. Fact check: The vaccine for COVID-19 has been nearly 20 years in the making Lungs and the COVID-19 long haulBankhead-Kendall's finding is among many amplifying the growing concern of COVID-19 survivors suffering from lingering illness — dubbed "long haulers" — ranging from chronic fatigue, kidney damage, cardiovascular, psychiatric or neurological and other issues. As the Instagram post suggests, lung damage has been observed with COVID-19, especially since it begins as a respiratory infection. A July 2020 study published in the Lancet found that over 60% of the 55 recovered noncritical patients examined had persistent respiratory issues three months after their hospital discharge, over 70% had abnormal findings on lung CT scans and slightly over 25% had reductions in lung function, particularly in the ability to transfer gases from inhaled air to red blood cells, called diffusing capacity of the lungs for carbon monoxide, or DLCO. Ground-glass opacities, a term used to describe a cloudiness that shows up on imaging that is not dense enough to obscure surrounding or underlying tissue, have been detected in the lungs of COVID-19 patients although they are not specific to the disease. Dr. Jennifer Possick, a pulmonologist at Yale Medicine, told Health last April that ground-glass opacities can be found in many different conditions like lung cancer, congestive heart failure, inflammatory lung diseases and, commonly, viral pneumonias. They are thus not a sole diagnostic marker for COVID-19. While there is a risk COVID-19 can inflict permanent, long-term lung damage, particularly among people with preexisting lung conditions, there is hope for reversal. A September report from the European Respiratory Journal found coronavirus-induced lung inflammation and fluid buildup appeared to improve steadily over 12 weeks, hinting at an innate repair mechanism within the lungs. The finding is promising but will require further research given the small size of the study with only 82 patients, mostly male and average age over 50. Fact check: COVID-19 outbreak at NY nursing home started before vaccinations Our rating: TrueWe rate the claim COVID-19 can cause worse lung damage than smoking TRUE as it is supported by our research. The finding was reported by Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall of Texas Tech University and is among the growing body of evidence pointing to long-term systemic effects following COVID-19 infection, also known as long-haul COVID-19. Our fact-check sources:
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here. Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook. Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/26/fact-check-covid-19-can-cause-worse-lung-damage-than-smoking/4237874001/ |
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