Brightest ever X-ray reveals link between long Covid and pulmonary fibrosis

Revolutionary X-ray technology co-developed by UCL has been used to identify a link between the damage that severe Covid-19 can inflict on lungs and pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that causes severe scarring of lung tissue. The high-energy X-ray technique, Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), scans whole organs down to cellular level, allowing clinicians to view blood vessels about a tenth of the diameter of a human hair. Experts have now used the technology to reveal microscopic lung clots and changes in blood vessels that have only been found in pulmonary fibrosis associated with Covid-19, further improving our understanding of the long-term effects of serious Covid-19 infection. Around 20% of patients who survive severe Covid-19 (requiring hospitalisation) go on to develop pulmonary fibrosis. Typical life expectancy for the disease is around three to five years after diagnosis. For the paper, published in eBioMedicine , experts examined the intact lungs of patients who had passed away after contracting Covid-19. To do this they used HiP-CT, a particle accelerator that provides the world's brightest X-ray source, at around 100 billion times brighter than a hospital X-ray, developed by UCL with scientists from the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF).