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YOUR HEALTH: Direct treatment for breathing

A cutting-edge system may help deliver potent drugs directly to damaged lungs

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Millions of Americans have become sick with COVID since the pandemic began.

In that time, pulmonologists have learned much more about how the virus attacks the lungs.

"We recognized that COVID did the same thing that pulmonary hypertension does to the blood vessels of the lungs," said Dr. Raymond Benza, Cardiovascular Disease Specialist at The Ohio State University Medical Center.

"It causes a dropout of these pulmonary vessels, so that the conduits to which the body delivers blood to the lungs to get oxygen were disappearing."

Now, researchers at Ohio State are testing a new way to deliver medication directly to the damaged blood vessels.  

The VentaProst system works along with a mechanical ventilator to generate and deliver small droplets of an inhaled medication.

"Aerogen, which is the company that manufactures the pieces that we can fit to a ventilator that allowed us to deliver these medications to the ventilated patient with COVID-19, was really the breakthrough that we needed to deliver this drug," said Dr. Benza.

Doctors say this method of directly delivering the drug helps open up the blood vessels, improves oxygenation, and reduces strain on the heart. 

With VentaProst, doctors are hopeful they can improve outcome for COVID's sickest patients.  

VentaProst is undergoing clinical tests.

Patients in the trial will receive ten days of the treatment to see if it reduces circulatory and respiratory failure. 

"Now we had a delivery system that we can use that can aerosolize that drug and deliver it to patients who are ventilated with COVID-19," he said.

The researchers will then follow the patients for four weeks to see if the treatment reduces time on the ventilator, or in the hospital ICU.

About epoprostenol 

Epoprostenol is a drug that's been around for a long time. 

It's really one of the cornerstones of therapy for pulmonary hypertension. 

"Epoprostenol does all the good things that you want to do to a blood vessel," added Dr. Benza.

"It makes the blood vessel reactive again, it helps heal the lining of the blood vessels, and it restores the intelligence to the blood vessel that we need for it to regulate the flow of blood to the lungs."

If this story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Jim Mertens at jim.mertens@wqad.com or Marjorie Bekaert Thomas at mthomas@ivanhoe.com.

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