3 ms·
This is early, but I want it, now. I have a huge number of questions. My mother has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that irreversibly scars the lungs,
by benwerd 14y ago
This is early, but I want it, now. I have a huge number of questions.
My mother has idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that irreversibly scars the lungs, restricting breathing over time. My grandmother died of it; my aunt just had both lungs transplanted; my mother is at the front of the list for a double-lung transplant (and can be called in at any time - we all have to keep our cell phones on). There's every chance I or my sister will be diagnosed with it in the future. And it kills as many people in the US as breast cancer each year.
This would dramatically increase quality of life. Instead of having to cart torpedo-sized oxygen tanks everywhere, sufferers could inject themselves with this substance, and either downgrade their oxygen equipment or do without it entirely. It wouldn't be a cure, but it would almost certainly increase health overall while waiting for a transplant, and increase the chances of survival during one.
Forget Mars exploration, or undersea military missions. For a lot of people, breathing normally while living normal lives is science fiction enough.
- Gatsky 14y agoThe sensation of shortness of breath is complex. It doesn't depend on oxygen levels in the blood much at all, until they are dangerously low. It has more to do with blood pH and CO2 levels, as well as perceived work of breathing, and a whole lot of other factors we don't understand. Maintaining adequate blood oxygenation is unlikely to do much to fix the shortness of breath caused by IPF. If this technology comes to fruition, it would increase the number of people able to survive until transplant. There already aren't enough lungs about though...
- niels_olson 14y agoNavy doctor here. I wish your family the best of luck. Pulmonary fibrosis is a tough disease, no magic pill. However, the O2 tanks are no where near the size of a torpedo, even a relatively small air-launched torp would be over 10x the volume. Probably irrelevant to the topic, except I don't want folks to misunderstand how huge torpedoes are.