Fig. 1 | Scientific Reports

Fig. 1

From: Spatial transcriptomics of the epipharynx in long COVID identifies SARS-CoV-2 signalling pathways and the therapeutic potential of epipharyngeal abrasive therapy

Fig. 1

Assessment of Epipharyngeal Abrasive Therapy (EAT) on Macroscopic Epipharyngeal Inflammation and Viral mRNA Expression in Long COVID Patients. (a) EAT alleviated the macroscopic epipharyngeal inflammation in long COVID patients. These panels show the endoscopic characteristics in both standard light and narrow-band imaging (NBI) modes and drainage induced by EAT. The left panels show the endoscopic characteristics at the first visit. The right panels show the endoscopic characteristics 3 months after EAT. The white arrowhead indicates swelling of the epipharyngeal mucosa, the white arrow indicates mucus and crust adhesion, and the black arrow indicates a sterile nasal cotton swab containing zinc chloride. (b) Expression patterns of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA in the epipharynx in patients with long COVID before and after epipharyngeal abrasive therapy (EAT). The left panels show the staining results of the epipharyngeal tissues before and after EAT in Patients 1 to 3. The right panels show the staining results of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike FFPE 293 T cell pellet slide (GTX435744) as the positive control, and the staining results of epipharyngeal tissue from a patient with chronic epipharyngitis prior to the COVID-19 outbreak as the negative control. Brown dots represent SARS-CoV-2 mRNA. Scale bar, 100 μm.

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