OOne of the more amazing symptoms of COVID-19 Blood clot Many patients, including younger ones, are experiencing infection. Blood clots can cause dangerous obstruction of the lungs, even in people without a history of the circulatory system, and even stroke and death.
so Papers published in Science Earlier this week, researchers could get a glimpse of what might be causing the blood clot caused by the COVID-19 infection. This group is a specific set of antibodies known as autoantibodies, an illegal version of cells aimed at protecting the body from pathogens, but instead the cells themselves (in this case the body’s own vascular cells). (Attacking) has been found to be partly due to disease-related coagulation risk. Of the 172 patients admitted with COVID-19, they found that half produced these autoantibodies. In addition, when scientists injected autoantibodies into laboratory mice, the animals developed blood clots.
April, scientists in the same group report Inflammation associated with COVID-19 can cause blood clots in small blood vessels in the lungs, which are mostly filled with immune cells known as neutrophils. In patients with COVID-19, these neutrophils can explode in small blood vessels, creating sticky molecular traps that attract other coagulation factors that circulate in the blood. “Evolutionarily, I think these are meant to trap things like bacteria and viruses,” said an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, a researcher at the National Institute of Cardiopulmonary Blood, and the author of the study. One person, Yogen Kanthi, says. “However, [neutrophils] When overstimulated, they can grow and cause obstruction of blood vessels, causing blood clotting. In that early study, Kanthi and his colleagues found that COVID-19 patients with many of these “traps” in their blood system were more likely to suffer from severe illness and respiratory failure.
“Inflammation causes coagulation, and coagulation causes more inflammation,” he says. “It becomes a relentless self-amplifying loop of inflammation and coagulation, resulting in the patient becoming ill.”
Their latest Science According to the paper, researchers found that autoantibodies promote this cycle of inflammation and coagulation. The autoantibodies found in patients with COVID-19 are the same as those found in patients with an autoimmune disease called antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. In antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, the antibody attracts coagulation factors to disseminate blood clots and ultimately block blood flow. By understanding how these antibodies contribute to the coagulation risk of patients with the syndrome, experts such as Jason Knight studying antiphospholipid antibody syndrome have among COVID-19 patients. Predicted similar coagulation. “By May, coagulation was all that everyone was talking to with COVID-19 patients,” says Knight, an associate professor of rheumatology at the University of Michigan and one of the research authors. “When I started the autopsy, I saw coagulation of microvessels in my lungs.”
Such coagulation in small blood vessels, which may not even be detected by CT scan, is one of the features of blood flow blockage associated with COVID-19. Patients develop so-called macrovascular thrombosis in large blood vessels such as veins and arteries, which can cause deep vein thrombosis and stroke, as well as infections that can cause blood clots in small blood vessels in the lungs. .. This can cause respiratory problems. — And autoantibodies can bind to vascular cells everywhere, which may be the reason.
In fact, Kanti states that COVID-19 can be considered “an extreme version of many diseases, one of which is antiphospholipid antibody syndrome.” In short, studying these patients may give us a better understanding of how COVID-19 and coronavirus contribute to coagulation. First, Knight is already studying dipyridamole, a drug approved for the treatment of stroke and the prevention of blood clots in people who receive a prosthetic heart valve, to see if it can reduce the risk of coagulation in COVID-19 patients. Confirming. The drug is relatively inexpensive and directly suppresses neutrophil activation. This may reduce the formation of hyperactive neutrophil traps in the blood vessels. Tests for autoantibodies can be ordered by a doctor, so eventually the antibody levels in COVID-19 patients will be tested and, if proven effective, more aggressive anticoagulants or dipyridamole. Knight says he may triage to administer other drugs such as. , To protect them from coagulation.
The team is currently enrolling patients with COVID-19 for anticoagulant research, and may be available by the end of the year, Knight said. These discoveries may open up a new understanding of how the virus affects the body’s coagulation process. The fact that the body’s autoantibodies can cause such widespread coagulation is new, says Kanti. “We knew that such antibodies could exist. [from our knowledge of antiphospholipid syndrome] However, no one has confirmed whether they can cause coagulation. “
It is not yet clear at what point of infection these autoantibodies begin to form and what increases the likelihood of producing them in people. Genetics, the medical history of people with previous viral and bacterial infections, and recovery of the foreign body reaction initiated by COVID-19 can all contribute to that risk. However, the fact that half of the patients can produce these potentially thrombus-promoting antibodies is to better understand what these risk factors are and perhaps identify those who carry them. It means that it may help you to experience a more serious and potentially deadly COVID-19 infection.