Clot fills lungs of black coronavirus victims, study results

(CNN) -A careful autopsy of 10 African-American victims of coronavirus has shown that their lungs are clogged with blood clots, the researchers reported Wednesday.

All 10 patients had underlying illnesses that have been shown to exacerbate infections such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity. However, genetic factors may also play a role, the team at the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine said.

Survey results announced in Lancet Respiratory MedicineResearchers may help explain why blacks are suffering from Covid-19 in other countries, such as the United States and Britain.

“We found that the small blood vessels and capillaries in the lungs were occluded by bleeding associated with thrombus, contributing significantly to decompensation and death in these patients,” said Richard Vander, head of pathology at the School of Medicine. Dr. Heide said in a statement.

They also discovered a blood marker called D-dimer. This is a sign that the body is working to break down the blood clot.

“I think obesity is important to our population,” Bandarheide told CNN. Adipose tissue activates inflammatory chemicals-one of the underlying mechanisms of the link between obesity and various diseases. Covid-19 infections cause more inflammation, and doctors believe they are involved in the damage caused by Covid-19 and possibly the formation of blood clots.

Doctors treating Covid-19 patients throughout the United States report that their bodies are full of blood clots. Some early research showed that Treat patients with anticoagulants can help.

All 10 patients came to the hospital after a mild cough and fever for 3-7 days. Everything collapsed suddenly or caused sudden respiratory distress.

“One of the things people are seeing in Covid now is the storm of cytokines produced by the virus,” Vanderheide said. A cytokine storm is a flood of inflammatory immune system compounds produced by some people in response to an infection. “We can see it in the lungs section. We see the effects of the virus on cells,” he added.

The coronavirus itself may be causing the effect, or patients affected may have a unique predisposition to cytokine storms and blood clotting, Wanderheide said. “There can be all sorts of genetic factors,” he added.

What the pathologist did not see was inflammation of the heart, which Chinese doctors saw in patients, said it was a result of coronaviruses.

They also found no evidence of what is known as a secondary infection in the patient. Bacteria and fungi were never infected by the virus.

“We also note that the two patients were 40-50 years old, and were younger than those who are generally considered at risk of death from Covid-19,” the researchers wrote.

The findings could shed light on why the average British black suffers from Covid-19.

“The hallmark of the 2019 coronavirus pandemic was an increase in mortality in black, Asian, and ethnic groups in the United Kingdom, resulting in the British Government establishing an Emergency Research Task Force,” they said. wrote.

“In the United States, COVID-19 mortality is particularly high in large-city African-American communities.”

Research from New Orleans New England Medical JournalAlso announced Wednesday, a disproportionate number of Covid-19 inpatients were found to be African-American. Researchers report that 31% of the normal patient population of the Ochsner Health system is black, but 77% of those treated with coronavirus are black. And 70% of those who died were black.

“Black patients had a higher prevalence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease than white patients,” writes Ebony Price Haywood and colleagues at Ochsner.

But there are many factors underlying racial differences, they said.

“They may reflect fundamental racial differences in occupations that may increase the risk of exposure to the community (eg, service occupations),” they wrote. “The observed racial differences in Covid-19 may also reflect differences in the prevalence of chronic conditions that appear to increase the risk of serious illness.”