Common cold deadly for lung transplant patients
December 16, 2006 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Human rhinovirus (HRV) caused the death of two immunosuppressed lung transplant patients, revealed recent scientific evidence. Two out of eleven transplant patients developed severe respiratory failure and graft dysfuntion due to HRV infection in both the upper and lower airways.
“We confirmed the persistence of a single strain in each of three lung transplant recipients clinically infected by rhinovirus,” said Dr. Lauren Kaiser. “Two of the three had chronic upper respiratory tract infections. All three had relapsing lower respiratory infections, and two subsequently died with graft dysfunction.”
Aside from lung transplant patients, these findings also indicate that patients with asthma and other chronic airway diseases (or COPD) would be unusually susceptible to HRV infections. Incidentally, these same groups of people are also susceptible to flu. A clinical trial for an HRV drug is also underway.
Click here for more details on the study.
[Source: Medical News Today]
Tags: Common cold, human rhinovirus, lung transplants, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] A lot of news and posts focused on the common cold and seasonal flu. It is flu season after all, in the northern hemisphere. Research was just in for that a simple cold can harm post-surgery transplant patients. How do you know (again) if you have the colds, flu or sinusitis? Here is how. Now beware of whopping cough – it has symptoms which start like a cold. Chicken soup is order of the day. It’s one of those comfort foods that help our immune system. Other good-for-flu foods are listed here. Uncommon cures for the common cold may work for some, while cause harm for other users, like that Echinaceae. [...]