Doctor shares shocking image of Covid-19 damaged lung, worse than smokers
London, Jan. 18, 2021 (AltAfrica)-The lung of a covid-19 patient is far damaged than the lung of a chain smoker. That is the stack reality of scan images lungs of a smoker and a covid patient shared by a trauma surgeon
Brittany Bankhead-Kendall shared a scan of three sets of lungs side-by-side.
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Compared to a healthy lung – which shows little damage in the scan – a smoker’s lung appears to have a light cloudy film.
The x-ray of the Covid lung is much darker white, indicating heavy scarring.
Dr Bankhead-Kendall, an assistant professor of surgery with Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, tweeted: “Post-COVID lungs look worse than any type of terrible smoker’s lung we’ve ever seen
“And they collapse. And they clot off. And the shortness of breath lingers on… & on… & on.”
The doctor warned that such scarring would be a big issue for many who survive Covid.
“Everyone’s just so worried about the mortality thing and that’s terrible and it’s awful,” she told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth.
“But man, for all the survivors and the people who have tested positive this is — it’s going to be a problem.
Dr Bankhead-Kendall reported that every patient who she had treated for Covid-19 had shown severe lung damage when X-rayed.
Between 70 and 80 per cent of those who were asymptomatic had been similarly impacted.
“There are still people who say ‘I’m fine. I don’t have any issues,’ and you pull up their chest X-ray and they absolutely have a bad chest X-ray,” she said.
When it comes to those who spend days or even weeks struggling to breath on ventilators, it is not hard to imagine that their lungs would be heavily damaged as a result.
However, research into the impact seemingly mild cases of Covid-19 can have on lungs is only just beginning.
A lot of people who were asymptomatic to begin with have found themselves struggling to breath in the months after they were infected.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, has warned that patients may feel the impact of Covid-19 on their lungs for years.
For this reason he warned people to be wary of the disease, even if they are in low risk categories in terms of chance of mortality.
