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For some desperate COVID patients, lung transplants are the best chance at survival

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Dennis Franklin thought he had come down with a cold when he was vacationing with his wife in Holden, Mo., in June 2021. Too tired to do anything, he cut the trip short.

Once home in St. Charles, Mo., he went to an urgent care center and was diagnosed with COVID-19 and pneumonia. Two days later, on his wedding anniversary, he didn’t wake up. When his wife, Julia, tried to rouse him, she realized he was barely breathing. She frantically called 911 and an ambulance rushed him to the local hospital. Read the full story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.

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Is Diabetes a Risk Factor for Long COVID? Possibly.

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— Mixed results in seven-study scoping review

The jury is still out as to whether diabetes is a risk factor for post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), a researcher reported.

In a scoping review of seven studies, three (43%) concluded that diabetes was indeed a “potent” risk factor for developing long COVID following infection, according to Jessica L. Harding, PhD, of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Read more in MedPage Today.

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Up to 1 in 4 adult survivors experience at least one long COVID symptom

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COVID-19 survivors face a significantly higher risk than control patients for developing conditions affecting major system of the body, according to a study of nearly 2 million patients.

For example, up to one-quarter of people who have had COVID-19 experience at least one symptom of long COVID, the most common of which are acute pulmonary embolism and respiratory symptoms, researchers reported Tuesday in MMWR. Read more in Healio.

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When Will We Know if COVID Is Seasonal?

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— Infection is likely headed toward seasonality, but it’s not there yet

COVID-19 may indeed become a seasonal illness with predictable patterns of infection — but it’s not there yet, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts say.

While the virus has had some element of seasonality since it first came into the world more than 2 years ago, other factors — including variant evolution, population immunity, and behavioral changes — have made seasonality less apparent. Read more in MedPage Today.

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Q&A: Kidney donations from deceased donors with COVID-19 seen as safe

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Kidney transplant recipients do not contract COVID-19 from accepting a kidney donation from a COVID-19-positive deceased donor, according to data published in the Journal of Urology.

In a retrospective review, the Cleveland Clinic transplant team examined data for 55 patients who received a kidney donation from 34 deceased donors with COVID-19 between February 2021 and October 2021. All donors tested positive for COVID-19 within a median of 4 days of organ donation. Read more in Healio.

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Early outcomes favorable among transplant recipients whose donors had COVID-19

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In the third installment of a three-part video series, Heather Stefanski, MD, PhD, discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match.

“One of the common questions we received … is what to do when a donor tests positive for COVID-19,” Stefanski — vice president of medical services for National Marrow Donor Program/Be The Match — told Healio. Read more in Healio.

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Evaluating immune protection after third and fourth doses of homologous and heterologous SARS-CoV-2 vaccines among kidney transplant recipients

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In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers evaluated the immune responses after the third (V3) and fourth (V4) doses of homologous and heterologous messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in kidney transplant recipients (KTRs).
Read more in News Medical Life Sciences.

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Kidney Transplantation From COVID-19 Positive Donors Is Safe

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Transplanting kidneys from COVID-19-positive deceased donors appears safe, according to early results from a case series presented at AUA 2022.

At an AUA press conference, Alvin Wee, MD, MBA, program director for kidney transplantation at Glickman Urologic and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, reported results from 55 patients (36 men and 19 women) who received kidneys from 34 COVID-19-positive deceased donors from February to October 2021. Of the 34 donors, 13 (38.2%) had died from COVID-19-related causes and 6 (17.6%) had received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Donor selection criteria evolved to the point that only COVID-19-positive donors without significant primary or secondary kidney injury were selected. The average Kidney Donor Profile Index was 36.9. Read more in Renal & Urology News.

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People with chronic lung diseases more likely to have delayed, avoided care during pandemic

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SAN FRANCISCO — During the COVID-19 pandemic, people with chronic lung diseases, including asthma and COPD, were more likely to delay or avoid medical care compared with the general population or those with other COVID-19 risk factors

At the American Thoracic Society International Conference, Jane C. Fazio, MD, pulmonary critical care fellow at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, presented results of a cross-sectional secondary analysis of National Health Interview Survey data from the third and fourth quarters of 2020. Read the full story in Healio.

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