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Human medical trials have begun on severely ill COVID-19 patients using low-doses of radiation. The first results on a very small group at Emory University Hospital were published this week and the results were quite extraordinary. Researchers at Emory University Hospital, led by Dr. Mohammad Khan, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology, treated five COVID-19 patients with severe pneumonia who were requiring supplemental oxygen and whose health was visibly deteriorating. Their mean age was 90 with a range from 64 to 94, four were female, four were African-American, and one was Caucasian.
These patients were given a single low-dose of radiation (1.5 Gy) to both lungs, delivered by a front and back beam configuration. Patients were in an out of the Radiotherapy Department in 10 to 15 minutes. Within 24 hours, four of the patients showed rapid improvement in oxygenation and mental status (more awake, alert and talkative) and were being discharged from the hospital 12 days later. Blood tests and repeated imaging of the lungs confirmed that the radiation was safe and effective, and did not cause adverse effects – no acute skin, pulmonary, gastrointestinal or genitourinary toxicities.
The gray (Gy) is a dose unit of ionizing radiation defined as the absorption of one joule of radiation energy per kilogram of matter. The Gy replaces the older unit of the rad, and 1 Gy = 100 Rad. I should mention that medical doses are different than environmental doses as they are not whole body, but are targeted to a specific organ or tissue. So 1.5 Gy is quite low dose for medical uses. This treatment is critical because severe COVID-19 cases cause cytokine release syndrome, also known as a cytokine storm. Such a storm is a deadly uncontrolled systemic inflammatory response of the body’s immune system resulting from the release of great amounts of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which act as a major factor in producing acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, which is what kills....
Preprint of the origina, study available at medRxiv (June 8, 2020):
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.03.20116988v1
