A new systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical studies using mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) led by a team at the Mayo Clinic, and including researchers from Emory, Duke, Case-Western, and the University of Miami, shows a trend toward improved outcomes and reduced mortality for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)—a major complication for patients with COVID-19.

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Lockdown measures may have averted 3.1 million deaths from covid-19 across 11 European countries, including 470 000 in the UK, a new modelling study indicates. However, the researchers warn that European countries are very far from achieving herd immunity, as less than 4% of their populations were infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 4 May, when lockdowns

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A study on children suffering from severe inflammatory symptoms shows the condition is new and distinct from Kawasaki disease. In April, researchers in the UK and several European countries with high numbers of COVID-19 cases recognised a new inflammatory syndrome in children that was similar to Kawasaki disease, a rare syndrome known to affect young

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The clinical presentation of COVID-19 varies from patient to patient and understanding individual genetic susceptibility to the disease is therefore vital to prognosis, prevention, and the development of new treatments. For the first time, Italian scientists have been able to identify the genetic and molecular basis of this susceptibility to infection as well as to

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To ensure that people with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) get the care they need, it would help if a simple blood test could predict early on which patients are most likely to progress to severe and life-threatening illness—and which are more likely to recover without much need for medical intervention. Now, researchers have provided some

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Source NIH Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of the National Institutes of Health, have identified a specific, front-line defense that limits the infection to the olfactory bulb and protects the neurons of the olfactory bulb from damage due to the infection. Neurons in the nose respond to

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Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine are recommending that all COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU undergo a thromboelastography (TEG) to test for the risk of forming blood clots. This recommendation comes after they found that more than half of the patients tested under these same conditions developed clinically significant blood clots that went undetected using routine

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More reports of the unexpected inflammatory condition seen in a small number of children with the coronavirus infection are shedding light on common characteristics of the children. A new study from Paris found that black children appear disproportionately more likely to develop the symptoms than other children. These findings echo the pattern seen in adults where black patients

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Early data from a clinical study suggest that blocking the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) protein provided clinical benefit to a small group of patients with severe COVID-19. Researchers observed that the off-label use of the cancer drug acalabrutinib, a BTK inhibitor that is approved to treat several blood cancers, was associated with reduced respiratory distress

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Patients (n = 25) with severe and/or life-threatening COVID-19 disease were enrolled at the Houston Methodist hospitals from March 28 – April 14, 2020. Patients were transfused with convalescent plasma obtained from donors with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and had recovered. The primary study outcome was safety, and the secondary outcome was clinical status at day

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