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Hajjar LA, Ancona MB, Filho RK, Tresoldi M, Caldas JG, Monti G, Carnevale FC, De Cobelli F, Moreira de Assis A, Ciceri F, Landoni G, Dijkstra J, Moroni F, Abizaid AAC, Willemann Ungaretti F, Carvalho Carmona MJ, De Backer D, Pompilio CE, de Britto FS, Campos CM, Zangrillo A, Montorfano M. Microvascular lung vessels obstructive thromboinflammatory syndrome in patients with COVID-19: Insights from lung intravascular optical coherence tomography. Front Med (Lausanne) 2023; 10:1050531. [PMID: 36873865 PMCID: PMC9978141 DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1050531] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 01/30/2023] [Indexed: 02/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Microvascular lung vessels obstructive thromboinflammatory syndrome has been proposed as a possible mechanism of respiratory failure in COVID-19 patients. However, it has only been observed in post-mortem studies and has never been documented in vivo, probably because of a lack of CT scan sensitivity in small pulmonary arteries. The aim of the present study was to assess the safety, tolerability, and diagnostic value of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for the assessment of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia for pulmonary microvascular thromboinflammatory syndrome. Methods The COVID-OCT trial was a multicenter, open-label, prospective, interventional clinical study. Two cohorts of patients were included in the study and underwent pulmonary OCT evaluation. Cohort A consisted of patients with COVID-19 with a negative CT scan for pulmonary thrombosis and elevated thromboinflammatory markers (D-dimer > 10,000 ng/mL or 5,000 < D-dimer < 10,000 ng/mL and one of: C-reactive Protein > 100 mg/dL, IL-6 > 6 pg/mL, or ferritin > 900 ng/L). Cohort B consisted of patients with COVID-19 and a CT scan positive for pulmonary thrombosis. The primary endpoints of the study were: (i) to evaluate the overall safety of OCT investigation in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia, and (ii) to report on the potential value of OCT as a novel diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of microvascular pulmonary thrombosis in COVID-19 patients. Results A total of 13 patients were enrolled. The mean number of OCT runs performed in each patient was 6.1 ± 2.0, both in ground glass and healthy lung areas, achieving a good evaluation of the distal pulmonary arteries. Overall, OCT runs identified microvascular thrombosis in 8 patients (61.5%): 5 cases of red thrombus, 1 case of white thrombus, and 2 cases of mixed thrombus. In Cohort A, the minimal lumen area was 3.5 ± 4.6 mm2, with stenosis of 60.9 ± 35.9% of the area, and the mean length of thrombus-containing lesions was 5.4 ± 3.0 mm. In Cohort B, the percentage area obstruction was 92.6 ± 2.6, and the mean thrombus-containing lesion length was 14.1 ± 13.9 mm. No peri-procedural complications occurred in any of the 13 patients. Conclusion OCT appears to be a safe and accurate method of evaluating the distal pulmonary arteries in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Here, it enabled the first in vivo documentation of distal pulmonary arterial thrombosis in patients with elevated thromboinflammatory markers, even when their CT angiogram was negative for pulmonary thrombosis. Clinical trial registration ClinicalTrial.gov, identifier NCT04410549.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Marco B Ancona
- Interventional Cardiology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Roberto Kalil Filho
- Heart Institute Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Moreno Tresoldi
- Unit of General Medicine and Advanced Care, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - José Guilherme Caldas
- Department of Interventional Neuroradiology, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Giacomo Monti
- Anesthesia and Intensive Care Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Francisco Cesar Carnevale
- Interventional Radiology Department, Radiology Institute, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Francesco De Cobelli
- Radiology Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.,School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
| | - André Moreira de Assis
- Interventional Radiology Department, Radiology Institute, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Fabio Ciceri
- School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.,Department of Hematology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | - Giovanni Landoni
- Anesthesia and Intensive Care Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.,School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
| | - Jouke Dijkstra
- Division of Image Processing, Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands
| | - Francesco Moroni
- Interventional Cardiology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
| | | | | | - Maria José Carvalho Carmona
- Discipline of Anesthesiology, Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Daniel De Backer
- Department of Intensive Care, CHIREC Hospitals, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Carlos Eduardo Pompilio
- Department of Intensive Care, Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Fábio S de Britto
- Heart Institute Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Carlos M Campos
- Heart Institute Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Alberto Zangrillo
- Anesthesia and Intensive Care Department, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.,School of Medicine, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
| | - Matteo Montorfano
- Interventional Cardiology Unit, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy
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