Scientists warn that Covid-19 can cause potentially dangerous’ bumps’ on patients’ eyeballs due to inflammation caused by the virus.
- French doctors perform MRI scans on 129 seriously ill Covid-19 patients
- They found evidence of eye lumps in nine of these individuals admitted to the hospital
- What causes them and their long-term impact on health is currently unknown
From a dry cough to high fever, coronavirus is known to be linked to a range of unpleasant symptoms.
Now a new study has revealed another possible side effect – buttons on the eyeballs.
Researchers have warned that coronavirus infection can cause inflammation in the eyeballs and lead to the formation of mysterious buds on the back of the organ.
Experts do not yet know what causes the bumps or the long-term impact they have on the patient’s health.
A study among 129 French patients who had severe Covid-19 and underwent MRI scans revealed that nine of them (seven percent) had abnormalities.
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On the MRI scan of a 56-year-old man with severe COVID-19. The patient was hospitalized in the intensive care unit for 20 days when an MRI was performed. He was in a fan and in the supine position. This photo shows buttons on the back of the eyeball in the macular region (white arrowhead) and the extraordinary region (black arrowhead). The arrow on the right points to a free-standing retina
Eight of the patients in the study were treated in intensive care at some point.
“We have shown that some patients with severe COVID-19 from the French COVID-19 group had one or more nodules from the posterior pole of the world,” said lead author of the study, Dr Augustin Lecler, of the University of Paris said.
“This is the first time these findings have been described using MRI.”
The images produced by the MRI reveal at least one nodule on the macular region of the organ in afflicted individuals. This region is an integral part of the central vision.
Researchers believe the buds may be linked to inflammation caused by the virus, a common manifestation of the disease that attacks multiple organs.
In the photo, another MRI image of the same 56-year-old French Covid patient shows the black arrowhead as a node in the extraordinary region of the sigmoid. Experts do not yet know what the causes are or the impact it has on the patient’s long-term health
But they also put forward the theory that the problem could be caused by patients lying on their front in the hospital in a supine position, accidentally preventing veins from draining.
Of the nine patients with eye lumps, two had diabetes, six were obese and two had hypertension.
The team behind the finding also speculates that the nodules may be linked to intubation for ventilation.
“Our study advocates the selection of all patients hospitalized in the ICU for severe COVID-19,” said Dr. Lecler said.
“We believe that patients should receive specific eye protection treatments.”
The researchers perform clinical and MRI examinations on the survivors to monitor the nodules and see if they have clinical consequences, such as vision loss or visual impairment.
They also perform MRI scans on new patients with severe COVID-19 from the second and third waves of the pandemic, using stricter tests.
Meanwhile, the effects on patients with moderate Covid are currently being investigated.
Dr Lecler added: ‘We have launched a prospective study with dedicated high-resolution images to examine the eye and orbit in patients with mild to moderate Covid.
“Therefore, we will be able to know whether our findings were specific to severe Covid patients or not.”
The findings were published in the journal Radiology.