Researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have developed a potentially fatal disorder that leads to blood clotting, according to the University of North Carolina Medical School.
The team has discovered a link between adenovirus - a group of viruses that can cause mild to severe disease in the body - and a rare blood clotting disorder.
This is the first time that a common respiratory virus has been reported to be linked to blood clots and severe thrombocytopenia.
Platelets, often called thrombocytes, play a crucial role in forming blood clots when people get injured.
Viral infections, autoimmune diseases, and other conditions can cause platelet levels to drop throughout the body. The symptoms of thrombocytopenia are: thrombocytopenia, or thrombocytopenia.
Dr. Stephen Moll, professor of medicine at the Department of Medicine's Division of Hematology, said in a statement.
The discovery also opens new avenues for research to discover why and how this condition occurs.
Anti-PF4 disorders are caused by a person's immune system generating antibodies against PF4, a protein that is released by platelets. When an antibody forms against PF4 and binds to it, activation, and rapid removal of platelets in the bloodstream can be triggered, leading to blood clotting and low platelets.
Occasionally, a patient's exposure to heparin, called heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, leads to the formation of anti-PF4 antibodies. It may be a autoimmune condition without heparin exposure, which is called spontaneous HIT.
A small number of thrombocytopenia patients have been linked to specific Covid-19 vaccines in the past three years, similar to those produced by Moderna and Pfizer. This condition is called a vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia.
To understand this better, researchers looked at a five-year-old boy who was previously diagnosed with an adenovirus infection and was hospitalized with a severe blood clot in his brain and significantly reduced platelet levels.
The tests show that the patient's antibodies were targeting the same protein as HIT antibodies, which confirmed that they had a HIT variant linked to the adenovirus infection.
Scientists are now left with many unanswered questions about how common this disorder is and if it can be caused by other viruses.
Dr Moll asked if there was any possibility of a cure.
Even though blood clots protect you from bleeding too much if you have an injury or surgery - there could be other reasons for the disorder, which can be harmful.
blood clots can be life-threatening, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and those most at risk include:
Adenoviruses are a group of viruses that can impact different parts of the body. This is solely dependent on the type.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has said the range of illnesses related to adenoviruses include common cold or flu-like symptoms, such as a fever and sore throat.
Acute bronchitis, pneumonia, conjunctivitis and acute gastroenteritis - including vomiting and diarrhoea - may also be caused by infection.
Bladder inflammation or infection and neurological disease are less common but are also listed as symptoms.