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When a patient is suffering respiratory failure, such as can occur with COVID-19, breathing oxygen-enriched air may save their life, but there’s a chance it may also damage their lungs. The cause of the injury, at least in part, is an oxygen-induced shift in the balance of bacterial species in the lung, according to the results of a study in Science Translational Medicine today (August 12).
“It’s an important paper in establishing that there is a role of the microbiome in hyperoxia-induced lung injury,” says pulmonologist Alison Morris of the University of Pittsburg who was not involved in the research. The study “opens the door to looking more closely at the impact [of the microbiome] and how we can modulate it” for lung therapies, she continues.
“It’s a really neat set of experiments. They’ve taken a clinical conundrum, delved into human samples and then they’ve [followed ...
