Long Covid study finds previously undetected abnormalities in lungs

Researchers have discovered abnormalities in the lungs of long Covid patients who have breathlessness which cannot be detected with routine tests.

The Explain study uses xenon, an odourless, colourless, tasteless and chemically non-reactive gas, to investigate possible lung damage in the patients who have not been admitted to hospital, but continue to experience the symptom.

The initial results of the pilot study, involving 36 participants, suggest there is significantly impaired gas transfer from the lungs to the bloodstream in the long Covid patients despite other tests – including CT scans – coming back as normal.

The study’s chief investigator, Fergus Gleeson, professor of radiology at the University of Oxford and consultant radiologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We knew from our post-hospital Covid study that xenon could detect abnormalities when the CT scan and other lung function tests are normal.

“What we’ve found now is that, even though their CT scans are normal, the xenon MRI scans have detected similar abnormalities in patients with long Covid.

“These patients have never been in hospital and did not have an acute severe illness when they had their Covid-19 infection.

“Some of them have been experiencing their symptoms for a year after contracting Covid-19.