A patient suffering from Long COVID is examined by medical staff at the post-coronavirus disease (COVID-19) clinic of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, on February 21, 2022. — Reuters/File
A shocking BMJ investigation has revealed that long-term COVID patients are seeking “blood-flushing treatment” at private clinics in Cyprus, Germany and Switzerland, but medical experts are concerned about patient safety.
To carry out the treatment, known as apheresis, large needles are inserted into the veins and the blood is ‘filtered’ by removing lipids and inflammatory proteins. Apheresis is recommended by the German Society of Nephrology as a last resort in lipid disorders.
“I am concerned that these patients are being offered therapies that have not been evaluated by modern scientific methods: well-designed clinical trials,” said Beverley Hunt, medical director of the charity Thrombosis UK, as quoted by the BMJ.
“In this situation, treatment may or may not benefit them, but, worryingly, there is also a risk of harm.”
Gitte Boumeester contracted SARS-CoV-2 in November 2020. Desperate for a cure, she spent almost half of her savings to try the blood transfusion treatment with Lamarca’s Long COVID Center — but found no improvement in her health.
“I really think they need to put more emphasis on the experimental nature of the treatment, especially because it’s so expensive,” Boomeester said. “I knew before I started that the outcome was uncertain, but everyone at the clinic is so positive that you start to believe it and hope.”
Beate Jäger, who directs the North Rhine Lipid Center, and Markus Klotz, who founded the Long COVID Center in Cyprus, believe that microclots are related to the long symptoms of COVID.
They cite research by Etheresia Pretorius, a professor of physiological sciences at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, to justify their treatment of blood flushing and anticoagulation therapy.
However, some medical experts say there needs to be more research showing that microclots are linked to long-lasting COVID before a treatment can be given.
“They [microclots] they may be a biomarker of disease, but how do we know they are causal?” said Robert Ariens, professor of vascular biology at the University of Leeds School of Medicine.
“If we don’t know the mechanisms by which microclots form and whether or not they cause disease, it seems premature to create a treatment to eliminate microclots, as both apheresis and triple anticoagulation are not without risks, the obvious one being bleeding.” he continued.
However, there is no published peer-reviewed evidence to show that apheresis and anticoagulant therapy reduce microlots.
He added: “Because we don’t know how they form, we can’t say whether this treatment will stop microclots from recurring.”
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