The trend for patients with long COVID to visit private clinics abroad for alternative blood-filtering treatments is under the spotlight this week.
Investigations editor for *BMJ* Madlen Davies reports that thousands of patients, "frustrated at the lack of treatment available for long COVID", are travelling to Cyprus, Germany, and Switzerland for various therapies.
Apheresis, for example, is a treatment known as “blood washing”, and involves blood being removed and filtered for lipids and inflammatory proteins, before reinsertion.
Visitors to these clinics may also be prescribed anticlotting drugs such as clopidogrel, apixaban, and heparin. The idea is that long COVID symptoms are caused by small blood clots blocking oxygen flow.
"Although some doctors and researchers believe that apheresis and anticoagulation drugs may be promising treatments for long COVID," Davies writes, "others worry that desperate patients are spending life changing sums on invasive, unproved treatments."
Research is currently lacking on how microclots form and whether they are causing long COVID symptoms.
For the report, Davies interviewed Dr Shamil Haroon of the University of Birmingham, UK. He said: "People could potentially go bankrupt accessing these treatments, for which there is limited to no evidence of effectiveness.”
"Delivering such an experimental treatment should occur only in the context of a clinical trial."
However, people desperate for a cure to long COVID may be tempted to travel for such treatment after reading positive testimonials online.
Dr Asad Khan, a respiratory doctor in Manchester who has long COVID, understands this well. “All these rules about evidence based medicine and trials, they all go out the window when you’re facing a future in a darkened room and a life of disability,” he said.
Davies, M. Long COVID patients travel abroad for expensive and experimental "blood-washing" treatment. *BMJ* 13 July 2022 doi: 10.1136/bmj.o1671
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