If COVID19 kills via pneumonia why not fill lungs before

[masmdu]

this occurs. I remember hearing about perfluorocarbon (?) as a highly oxygenated liquid that can be breathed. Can this not occupy the lungs prior to pneumonia filling the lungs with fluid and resulting in death?

[FarPoint]

1. It just doesn't work that way...

Lungs are not oxygen storage tanks .Lungs are a gas exchange/ filter system...no storage.

[Igel]

7. I think there's actually a point there.

Not a strong point, but a point.

The patients suffocate because the alveoli wind up filled with liquid as the result inflammation and tissue damage--perhaps because of the ventilator, perhaps just because enough tissue is killed off by the virus and the immune response.

If you pre-fill the lungs with highly-oxygenated liquid then there might be enough pressure to keep the fluid from leaking out (it would have to displace the perfluorocarbon-based liquid. That might still happen, since perfluorocarbons don't dissolve water.

Things is, it's still experimental and difficult to pull off. You'd probably need to start them on it before absolutely necessary--and there's no way of telling when that is.

Also don't know if anybody's tried it for more than a short while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing gives more information than I remember from when it was a fashionable thing in the news, back in the '90s.

[hlthe2b]

2. Many of those deaths are ARDS (adult respiratory distress syndrome) where the lungs fill with fluid

due to direct effect on lung vasculature causing vessels to leak.

ARDS can result from any number of infectious and disease processes (e.g., pancreatitis). In fact, it is common enough with severe pancreatitis that many efforts have been made to try ahead of time to prevent it, but nothing so far has been particularly effective beyond treating the multi-systemic impact itself. Thus far, nothing has been shown to directly counteract the effect on lung vessels and treatment is supportive, including oxygenation, blood pressure support, and antibiotics to prevent secondary infection


As a COVID-19 related irony, one of the physicians who first described ARDS decades ago and spent much of his life working on therapies, died (NJ, I think) recently of COVID-19-related (yes, you got it), ARDS. RIP, sir.

[captain queeg]

3. It was a reasonable thought. I remember seeing a video of a mouse immersed in the stuff

And being ok and breathing afterwards. I think that’s what they were using in that sci-fi The Abyss. But I don’t think it’s really used with humans or if it is, it would be some high tech navy diving like in that movie.

[FM123]

4. Interesting question, it actually leads me to another question...

I took my elderly dad (91) to get his pneumonia vaccine doses last year - if the virus kills via pneumonia can the vaccine save lives by protecting the lungs?

[morillon]

5. Only from pneumococcal bacteria

The overlap in names is confusing. The "pneumonia" vaccine goes after those specific pneumococcal bacteria.

The condition, pneumonia, can be caused by those bacteria or others, and by viruses and fungi.

[Timewas]

6. No

Different cause, the vaccine protects against bacterial pneumonia,this one is caused by the virus itself...