As the world continues to struggle against the coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak doctors at the Sheba Medical Center outside Tel Aviv in Israel are going to give lung radiation to the coronavirus patients after the Health Ministry gave approval to a 30-person trial, which is the first experimental therapy of Israel.
The virus outbreak has made it difficult for doctors around the world to treat lung inflammations. The doctors at Sheba believe that the targeted radiation on the lungs might be able to slow the inflammation there and prevent or even reduce the effects of pneumonia that causes many COVID-19 deaths.
Lung Radiation to Tackle COVID-19
"Low-dose radiation is extremely effective in reducing the types of inflammatory cells that invade the lungs of coronavirus patients, prevent them from oxygenating the blood, and cause failure of the systems and possibly death, and I'm hopeful that this will save lives," Zvi Symon, who is the director of Sheba's Radiation Oncology Department and the person behind the trial told The Times of Israel.
"These doses won't kill the virus itself or change the viral replication rate in the body in any way, but we anticipate they will reduce the severe inflammation in the lung that it induces and it's this inflammation that causes patients to die from inflammatory failure," headed. Symon said that they have already witnessed in animal models low-dose radiation has a broad range of anti-inflammatory effects.
He also accepted the fact that the therapy can be dangerous as despite the low dose it can cause cancer but he stated that the benefits outweigh the risks. According to the doctor, this can help the elderly people and moreover the therapy can save many lives.
The deadly virus outbreak has created a major stir around the world in recent times infecting more than 25.2 million people globally and claimed the lives of over 846,000 people worldwide in over 170 nations. Scientists around the world are currently working to find a cure and an effective vaccine is expected by the first quarter of 2021.
