A University of Leeds study found a sharp increase in a rare autoimmune disease during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily impacting previously unaffected groups. The study, which found a significant correlation with COVID-19 exposure, underscores the need for awareness and rapid treatment to mitigate severe outcomes like lung disease and death.
“It is important that physicians understand the symptoms so that patients can be quickly referred for treatment and have the best chance of a rapid and full recovery. Lives could undoubtedly be saved but there is a great need for research to try and slow or stop the rapid lung progression that occurs in some patients,” he adds.viruses like COVID-19. Normally, this protein helps trigger an immune response in the body, where more of the protein is produced to help fight off the virus.
Twenty-five out of the 60 patients developed interstitial lung disease, and despite treatment with immunosuppressant medication, eight of those patients died. A ninth patient, who did not have interstitial lung disease, died from sepsis. This work was done in collaboration with Dr Pradipta Ghosh and her team at the University of California, San Diego, who showed that the MDA5 protein was found in higher amounts in patients with COVID-19 and in patients with other diseases involving MDA5. They discovered that this increase was linked to an abnormal immune response that slows the virus’s ability to multiply and spread.
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