Emergency room doctor, near death with coronavirus, saved after experimental treatment

[Yavin4]

The immune system normally uses proteins called cytokines as weapons in fighting a disease. For unknown reasons in some COVID-19 patients, the immune system first fails to respond quickly enough and then floods the body with cytokines, destroying blood vessels and filling the lungs with fluid.

The doctors tried a drug called Actemra, which was designed to treat rheumatoid arthritis but also approved in 2017 to treat cytokine storms in cancer patients.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-13/coworkers-save-coronavirus-doctor

[triron]

1. Maybe good news.

[Yavin4]

2. Hopefully. This is what we should be concentrating on.

Finding a treatment that can save lives until we get a vaccine in place. Take out the lethality of the disease if you cannot cure it total.

[SheltieLover]

3. Yaaaaay!

TY for the happy, hopeful news!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. It was also used on another patient who also survived.

It's great news, but it's only 2 patients.

A great many more folks will need to participate in a (preferably) double-blind study to see if it really works on a broad spectrum of the population.

Still, this is a very promising start.

[crickets]

5. Potentially very good news. K&R for visibility.

[blitzen]

6. He never would have made it without the ECMO machine...

and there are only a handful, at most, in each state.

This is not to say that the drug was not instrumental in his recovery. But in his case, without ECMO he would not have been alive by the time they decided to try the drug.

[SunSeeker]

7. Good, because hydroxychloroquine does not work. nt

[cstanleytech]

8. That is not true!!!

It works great if you are a snake oil salesman that owns shares in a company that makes it and to increase sales of it you claim it will cure people of whatever malady they have.

[SunSeeker]

9. LOL

[niyad]

11. And if you are in a position to order thirty MILLION of those piles for the public stockpile, at

taxpayer expense, to further enrich yourself.

[keithbvadu2]

10. UNDERSTAND THE CYTOKINE STORM

You can actually be too healthy to survive coronavirus 0409

UNDERSTAND THE CYTOKINE STORM

This coronavirus can trigger "Cytokine release syndrome" (a cytokine storm) in persons with particularly healthy immune systems. COVID-19 is a disease that you actually have a better chance of surviving if your immune system is slightly compromised. The 1918 flu pandemic (The Spanish Flu) killed between 50 and 100 million people, many of whom were young and healthy. Evidently, the virus triggers the body's immune system and keeps triggering it, non-stop and relentlessly, until the infected person is killed by their own, super-strong immune system. That is the essence of a cytokine storm, and it's why many young, healthy people are likely to be struck down by this disease.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213100840

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142466698

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome

[SamBob]

12. never

would have thought that having a somewhat compromised immune system might actually help a person get over the virus.
I truly hope that is the case.
Maybe because they compromised immune system has been through so much in it's time??

[uponit7771]

13. +1,

[drmeow]

14. I'm helping with a vitamin c

Study at my hospital - my PI was probably consulted for this treatment!