The president of the Society of intensivists in Quebec will keep an eye on the results of two american studies that assess the impact of small radiation doses on the treatment of the COVID-19.
The idea made smile Germain Poirier on the go, because it is a hypothesis that had made its way into the 1930s and 1940s.
The low doses of radiation, however, had had unsatisfactory results on the pneumonia, and had been abandoned.
“Is this that of take that, it is a good idea ? I think that we do not know. The science has evolved since the 1940s. It is best with the radiotherapy, but again, we face a disease that we know more or less, ” he explains.
Avoid respirators
Two clinical studies are underway in Ohio, in the United States, and are designed specifically to determine whether it is possible to reduce the pulmonary inflammation associated with the COVID-19 with low doses of radiation.
In the event of positive results, this could prevent that patients have to be connected to respirators.
Rigor
The Dr Poirier had not consulted with the research protocol when it has been contacted by The Journalbut he hopes that the study will be treated with the seriousness it deserves.
“What we tend to do, with the COVID, it is to study and speed up the process, and put aside a little, the scientific rigor that has been acquired for tens of years,” he says.
Still, it is quite curious to see where will come the research.
“If it is a positive study, so much the better. This is a negative study, so much the better, too, because they will know that this is, perhaps, not to use at large “he concludes.
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