Diaphragm dysfunction found in patients who died of COVID-19A research letter published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine shows that patients who died of COVID-19 in the Netherlands were more than twice as likely to have scarring of their diaphragms than patients who died of other causes.A research team led by Amsterdam University Medical Center compared diaphragm specimens from 26 patients who died of coronavirus with those of 8 patients who died of other causes at three academic medical centers in April and May.
Weakness of the diaphragm, the main muscle responsible for breathing, can result in acute respiratory failure, prolong mechanical ventilation, and raise the risk of death.The researchers found elevated expression of genes