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Mortazavi SA, Bevelacqua JJ, Welsh JS, Masoumi SJ, Bahaaddini Beigy Zarandi BF, Ghadimi-Moghadam A, Haghani M, Mortazavi SMJ. The Paradox of COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa: Why it is More Unethical Not to Investigate Low Dose Radiotherapy for COVID-19. J Biomed Phys Eng 2022; 12:539-542. [PMID: 36313404 PMCID: PMC9589076 DOI: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.2110-1411] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2021] [Accepted: 11/14/2021] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
An accumulating body of evidence shows that various ethnicities are differentially affected by SARS-COV-2 infection. Moreover, some evidence shows that due to the vaccine inequity and millions of people living with HIV, a major catastrophe could occur in African countries that possibly affects the whole world. Given the possibility that Neanderthal genes confer a slight increase in susceptibility, this difference, at least to some extent, might possibly decrease the risk of the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants among black people in Africa. Recent studies show less death and fewer cases among the ethnic group classified as “Black Africans”. Although Neanderthal DNA might explain some differences in morbidity and mortality of COVID-19, a multitude of confounders complicate things to where drawing definite conclusions is hard or even impossible. Using selective-pressure-free treatments (e.g. low dose radiotherapy) for COVID-19 pneumonia would be of crucial importance everywhere, but particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where “long COVID” in millions of people with HIV paves the road for the more frequent emergence of new variants.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - James S Welsh
- MD, PhD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, United States
- MD, PhD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital Hines, Illinois
| | - Seyed Jalil Masoumi
- MD, PhD, Department of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
| | | | | | - Masoud Haghani
- PhD, Department of Radiology, School of Paramedical Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
| | - Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi
- PhD, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering, School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
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Mortazavi SA, Jooyan N, Baha'addini Baigy Zarandi BF, Jooyan N, Faraz M, Mortazavi SMJ. Coming Out of Nowhere: The Paradox of the Birth of Omicron. J Biomed Phys Eng 2022; 12:325-326. [PMID: 36059290 PMCID: PMC9395623 DOI: 10.31661/jbpe.v0i0.2202-1456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 02/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Najmeh Jooyan
- PhD, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering , School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
| | | | - Neda Jooyan
- MD, Aliasghar Teaching Hospital, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
| | - Mehdi Faraz
- MSc, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering , School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
| | - Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi
- PhD, Department of Medical Physics and Engineering , School of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
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COVID-19 Update: The Golden Time Window for Pharmacological Treatments and Low Dose Radiation Therapy. RADIATION 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/radiation2030020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
At the beginning of the COVID-19 emergence, many scientists believed that, thanks to the proofreading enzyme of SARS-CoV-2, the virus would not have many mutations. Our team introduced the concept of radiation at extremely low doses in an attempt to establish selected pressure-free treatment approaches for COVID-19. The capacity of low-dose radiation to modulate excessive inflammatory responses, optimize the immune system, prevent the occurrence of dangerous cytokine storm, regulate lymphocyte counts, and control bacterial co-infections as well as different modalities were proposed as a treatment program for patients with severe COVID-19-associated pneumonia. There is now substantial evidence which indicates that it would be unwise not to further investigate low-dose radiation therapy (LDRT) as an effective remedy against COVID-19-associated pneumonia.
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Abdalla W, Renukappa S, Suresh S. Managing COVID‐19‐related knowledge: A smart cities perspective. KNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT 2022. [PMCID: PMC9088492 DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1706] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Wala Abdalla
- Faculty of Science and Engineering University of Wolverhampton Wolverhampton UK
| | - Suresh Renukappa
- Faculty of Science and Engineering University of Wolverhampton Wolverhampton UK
| | - Subashini Suresh
- Faculty of Science and Engineering University of Wolverhampton Wolverhampton UK
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Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is of great concern for the whole world, and finding an effective treatment for the disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is, therefore, a global race. In particular, treatment options for elderly patients and patients with genetic risk factors with COVID-19-associated pneumonia are limited, and many patients die. Low-dose radiotherapy (LDRT) of lungs was used to treat pneumonia many decades ago. Since the first report on the potential efficacy of LDRT for COVID-19-associated pneumonia was published on 1 April, 2020, tens of papers have addressed the importance of this treatment. Moreover, the findings of less than 10 clinical trials conducted to date are now available. We performed a detailed search of PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Scopus and selected the nine most relevant articles. A review of these articles was conducted. The available data indicate that in oxygen-dependent elderly patients with COVID-19-associated pneumonia, whole-lung radiation at doses of 0.5–1.5 Gy can lead to accelerated recovery and progress in clinical status, encephalopathy, and radiographic consolidation without any detectable acute toxicity. Although data collected so far show that LDRT could be introduced as a treatment with promising efficacy, due to limitations such as lack of randomization in most studies, we need further large-scale randomized studies, especially for elderly patients who are at greater risk of mortality due to COVID-19. However, more preclinical work and clinical trials are needed before any clear conclusion can be made.
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Abstract
The CT manifestation of COVID-19 patients is now well known and essentially reflects pathological changes in the lungs. Actually, there is insufficient knowledge on the long-term outcomes of this new disease, and several chest CTs might be necessary to evaluate the outcomes. The aim of this study is to evaluate the radiation dose for chest CT scans in COVID-19 patients compared to a cohort with pulmonary infectious diseases at the same time of the previous year to value if there is any modification of exposure dose. The analysis of our data shows an increase in the overall mean dose in COVID-19 patients compared with non-COVID-19 patients. In our results, the higher dose increase occurs in the younger age groups (+86% range 21–30 years and +67% range 31–40 years). Our results show that COVID-19 patients are exposed to a significantly higher dose of ionizing radiation than other patients without COVID infectious lung disease, and especially in younger age groups, although some authors have proposed the use of radiotherapy in these patients, which is yet to be validated. Our study has limitations: the use of one CT machine in a single institute and a limited number of patients.
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