Once upon a time , COVID-19 wastwo weeks of coughingand aninability to smell your fresh taper . Then we discovered the existence ofLong COVID – a vague conglomeration ofmore than 200 symptomsthat can be debilitating months or even years after the original disease seems to have cleared up .
Now , four twelvemonth into the pandemic , we ’re still not totally indisputable what ’s behind the extended condition – but a new study that follow 24 Covid patients over a time period of up to 900 days has revealed a potential factor that has antecedently die unnoticed : your thyroxine cells .
It’snot the first studyto liaison COVID-19 with these special immune cell – onlylast month , a subject area from Imperial College London hinted at the voltage for targeted T cellular phone therapy to struggle the precondition . But it is one of the longest - running play : it was set up in 2020 , long before the idea that COVID-19 might fall around in the body was widely go for .
That ’s not all that set it asunder , however . The team behind the study was inspired by their experience researching HIV – a diseasepractically definedby itsability to kill triiodothyronine prison cell . Unable to monitor antibody so early into the pandemic , they instead used PET scans to study the behaviour of T cell inside the body after infection .
“ [ It ] is a fresh overture [ … ] that take into account them to map activated MT electric cell in the body,”explainedDanny Altmann , Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London , atomic number 27 - author of the Penguin Handbook of Long Covid and moderate tec of the NIHR WILCO LONG COVID Study , who was not involve in the discipline .
“ They find oneself blueprint of long - terminal figure T cell activating that may aid to explicate pattern of Long Covid symptoms , ” he said . “ For example , people with respiratory symptom testify long - terminus homing of activated thyroxin cells to the lung . ”
Other CAT scan showed activated T cells swarming to the bowel wall , remind the squad to dissect gut biopsy . Again , they receive the presence of COVID-19 RNA – a “ long - term computer virus man-made lake , ” Altmann explained .
The determination was even more stark when equate to six control sample distribution – scans from before the pandemic , “ before anybody on the major planet could ’ve perchance had this virus , ” Michael Peluso , supporter professor of medicine at the University of California , San Francisco , and lead generator of the composition , toldStat . While T cells were activated in these scan , they were center where you ’d gestate – the liver , kidney , and other place known to help absolved inflammation . In the Long Covid patient role , they were everywhere .
“ It ’s really striking , ” Peluso said . “ ‘ Oh , my good , this is pass in someone ’s spinal electric cord , or their GI tract , or their nerve bulwark , or their lung . ’ ”
While the study is n’t a slam - dunk – it ’s not actually sealed what the T cells are react to , and the investigator are n’t sure whether the CAT scan are showing end of old infections , or fighting computer virus corpuscle – it ’s nevertheless alluring . “ There has been a magnanimous amount of inferential data supporting a perspective that a key factor underpin Long Covid may be that some people do not by rights reset the computer virus and harbor reservoirs of SARS - CoV-2 in their tissues , ” Altmann noted – but “ it ’s been hard to prove . ”
In that regard , this subject “ should be hear as a significant measure in advancing our understanding of this disease operation , ” he say , “ and thus shifting nearer to treatments that could offer hope to the decade of millions of patient role . ”
“ At a time when there ’s dire need for new clinical trials , report like this help to point the style . ”
The study is published in the journalScience Translational Medicine .
