LoCTDC
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring Gas Transfer and the utility of Dynamic Chest Radiography in Long Covid patients.
IRAS ID
326752
Contact name
Rebecca Nightingale
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Liverpool University Hospital Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Long COVID potentially affects 35% of people who have had COVID-19 infection. Many people experience symptoms of being short of breath or having a high heart rate even at rest. It is not fully understood why this is. This study uses breathing tests to assess how well oxygen gets from the lungs into the blood stream, in people with long COVID and without. It aims to find if symptom severity is linked to the results of the breathing test, and to explore if a new type of chest X-ray (dynamic X-ray, DCR) can help diagnose why patients are breathless.
With regards to safety, DCR uses the same technology as a conventional chest X-ray but allows many more X-rays to be taken with a slight increase in radiation dose. Taking the DCR images for this study involves a small radiation dose. Ionising radiation can cause cancer in many years or decades. The risk of developing cancer because of taking part in this study is less than 0.003%.
In the future, this technique has the potential to become a first line investigation for breathlessness especially in patients who would struggle to perform more conventional breathing tests.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/YH/0144
Date of REC Opinion
7 Jul 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion