LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Ninety-seven million Americans have had COVID. For most of us, it’s a few days of aches, pains, and fatigue. But for some, the symptoms just don’t go away. They are called COVID long haulers. And now, the world’s first 4D scan is changing how doctors diagnose and treat long COVID lungs.
Amy Dutrisac remembers how she felt when she and her family realized they had caught COVID.
“I had no energy. My lungs were aching, I had a horrible cough. It was scary,” she recalls.
After a few days, Amy’s daughter and husband started to feel better, but not Amy.
“I got increasingly worse,” she says.
Amy was one of the first to undergo a new FDA-cleared four-dimensional scan of her lungs. Long COVID lungs
Pulmonary specialist at the Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, California, Dr. Ray Casciari, MD explains, “It can actually measure air coming from your upper lung on the right, lower lung on the right, upper and left lower lung.”
The XV technology uses a fluoroscopy, which is in all hospitals, but the new software algorithms convert the scans, allowing doctors to see defects caused by long COVID. The color coding allowed Dr. Casciari to see immediately what other lung imaging methods like chest X-rays and CT scans cannot.
The scan helped Dr. Casciari know which targeted therapies to use on Amy.
“It shed light where light needed to be shed,” Amy says.
And now, Amy is breathing easy and free of her all of her symptoms.
She expresses, “It’s worth it. It changed my life.”
Because there’s very little radiation exposure and the cost is low, about $500 per scan, the scan can be repeated several times. Without being able to successfully treat long COVID, patients could face a lifetime of respiratory problems and even develop conditions like adult onset asthma. This scan is also being used successfully to treat veterans who have burn pit injuries, and patients with emphysema and asthma.
Contributors to this news report include: Marsha Lewis, Producer; Roque Correa, Videographer & Editor.
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Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html
https://4dmedical.com/our-products/clinical/xv-lvas-ventilation-report/
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS
RESEARCH SUMMARY
TOPIC: WORLD’S FIRST 4D SCAN OF LONG COVID LUNGS
REPORT: MB #5150
BACKGROUND: Long COVID, or Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), is a condition in which individuals infected with COVID-19 continue to experience a wide range of physical, mental, emotional, and psychological symptoms after their initial infection, impacting their daily lives. Overall, 1 in 13 adults in the U.S. have “long COVID” symptoms, defined as symptoms lasting three or more months after first contracting the virus, and that they didn’t have prior to their COVID-19 infection. Older adults are less likely to have long COVID than younger adults. Nearly three times as many adults ages 50-59 currently have long COVID than those age 80 and older.
(Sources: https://health.ny.gov/diseases/long_covid/index.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220622.htm)
DIAGNOSING: People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms. Possible symptoms include fever or chills, cough, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, muscle aches, and/or fatigue.
(Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html)
NEW TECHNOLOGY: The world’s first four-dimensional visual insight into the residual effects of COVID-19 or ‘long COVID’ providing an unprecedented ability for patients, clinicians and researchers to understand the ongoing impact of this disease has been obtained using 4DMedical’s unique XV Technology. 4DMedical confirmed that COVID-afflicted patients had been scanned as part of a comprehensive program of clinical pilot studies carried out in Melbourne, validating the application of this revolutionary technology in detecting and diagnosing various respiratory conditions, and providing safe longer-term monitoring and surveillance of the impact of diseases including COVID-19.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS REPORT, PLEASE CONTACT:
James Chisum
If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com
