NEW YORK: Researchers found clots in small venous and arterial blood arteries in the skin of patients with severe Covid-19 that appeared normal using a non-invasive skin biopsy.
The research, which were published in The American Journal of Pathology, showed that the clots were not visible in the skin of patients with other types of severe infectious lung diseases or in people with only mild or moderate Covid. Researchers were previously using invasive techniques like lung, kidney, or nerve biopsy.
Lead researcher Jeffrey Laurence of the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in the US said, "We were the first group to recognise that the lung illness of acute Covid-19 was different from other severe critical respiratory infections, and that the peculiar pathology was systemic.
Six persons with mild to moderate Covid symptoms, such as fever, chills, coughing, or shortness of breath, and simple 4 mm punch biopsy samples of normal-appearing deltoid skin from 15 Covid patients who were in intensive care were also included in the study.
The study also included biopsy samples from nine hospitalised patients who passed away before the Covid period and had severe or critical kidney or respiratory problems.
Thirteen of the fifteen patients with severe or serious Covid-19 had microthrombi found. In the biopsies of patients with mild to moderate Covid or patients with severe respiratory sickness or kidney illnesses in the pre-Covid era, no microthrombi were seen. When compared to other acute respiratory disorders, it's likely that Covid respiratory disorder has these microvascular modifications as a distinguishing feature.