WATCH: This Video reveals lung damage in coronavirus patients: 'People need to take this seriously'
(CNN) - A video shows the lungs of a man who had been asymptomatic a few days earlier.
Now,
the patient has Covid-19 and his lungs are failing to function
properly, said Dr. Keith Mortman, the chief of thoracic surgery at
George Washington University Hospital. The Washington, D.C., hospital
recently released a 3D video of the coronavirus patient's lungs.
The
imagery shows extensive damage to the lungs of a generally healthy
59-year-old male with high blood pressure, Mortman said. Since becoming
seriously ill, the patient requires a ventilator to help him breathe,
but even on the highest setting, it's not enough. He also needs another
machine that circulates and then oxygenates his blood, Mortman said.
"This is not a 70, 80-year-old immunosuppressed, diabetic patient,"
Mortman said. "Other than high blood pressure, he has no other
significant medical issues. This is a guy who's minding his own business
and gets it ... If we were to repeat the 360VR images now, that is one
week later, there is a chance that the infection and inflammatory
process could be worse."
Areas
marked in yellow on the video represent infected and inflamed parts of
the lung, Mortman said. When the lungs encounter a viral infection, the
organ will start to seal the virus off. From the scan, it is clear that
the damage isn't localized to a single area, but instead covers massive
swaths of both lungs, showing how rapidly and aggressively the infection
can take hold, even in younger patients. A patient with healthy lungs
would have no yellow on the scan, he said.
The patient remains in critical condition in the ICU.
"For
these patients who essentially present in progressive respiratory
failure, the damage to the lungs is rapid and widespread (as evidenced
in the VR video)," Mortman said in an email. "Unfortunately, once
damaged to this degree, the lungs can take a long time to heal. For
approximately 2-4% (depending on which numbers you believe) of patients
with Covid-19, the damage is irreversible and they will succumb to the
disease."
The
coronavirus is primarily respiratory in nature. It "gets into the mucus
membranes, and then it's in the lung. The way the body tries to control
that is with inflammation," Mortman said.
The
yellow marks both infection and inflammation. "So you get this pretty
strong inflammatory process in the lungs in the body's attempt to
control the infection," Mortman said.
Inflammation
prevents the lungs from being able to oxygenate the blood and to remove
carbon dioxide. That would cause a patient to gasp, or inhale a lot of
air to balance the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels
The
images suggest that the words to describe common symptoms -- coughing
and shortness of breath -- can't really capture the impact of the virus
on the body.
In some people,
Mortman said, the damage will be irreversible -- making it imperative
that Americans heed advice on social distancing and self-isolation.
"I want people to see this and understand what this can do," Mortman said. "People need to take this seriously."
The
hospital typically uses the CT imaging technology that produced the
video for cancer screenings and to plan surgeries. But for the first
time, the technology has now been applied to fighting the novel
coronavirus.
"A
lot of us, we are walking in the dark with this," Mortman said. "So we
want to understand it as best we can. This was our first patient, but I
am sure he is the first of what will likely become many in the coming
weeks."
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