Pope sees positive signs but recovery long says expert

(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 20 - Pope Francis has seen some positive signs that his double pneumonia is responding to antibiotic treatment but his recovery will take a long time, an expert told ANSA Thursday.
    The slight improvement in inflammatory indices highlighted by the latest analyses carried out on Pope Francis is "undoubtedly a positive sign, which indicates a response to the antibiotic therapy in progress," said Francesco Blasi, full professor of Respiratory Diseases at the University of Milan and head of the Complex Structure of Pneumology and Cystic Fibrosis at the Milan Polyclinic.
    "However, the process will probably be long, since the management of bilateral pneumonia requires several days, if not weeks, to be under control".
    In the blood tests, the expert explains, "some inflammatory indices are measured in particular, namely procalcitonin, C-reactive protein and the level of white blood cells. The fact that these indices are improving means that the infection that has attacked both lungs of the pontiff is gradually coming under control and there is a response from the body to the infection".
    In other words, the fears linked to the risk of a lack of efficacy of the therapies or of a possible resistance to the antibiotics in use are being alleviated: "The data released regarding the lowering, albeit slight, of the inflammatory indices - Blasi specifies - indicate precisely that the antibiotics currently used are working and the body is responding". Bilateral pneumonia, which struck the pontiff, "is an infection caused by infectious agents, such as bacteria, and the infection affects the deep lung. In these cases - the pulmonologist clarifies - the body's response is inflammatory.
    This means that the body defends itself from the attack of bacteria through an immune reaction that is also inflammatory.
    Therefore, on the one hand the inflammatory reaction is positive, on the other hand, however, an excess of inflammatory response damages the lung because in addition to determining the elimination of bacteria it also leads, at the same time, to killing the lung cells themselves. A very problematic aspect is precisely represented by the excess of inflammatory response that the body puts in place in these cases to defend itself".
    For this reason, he notes, it is essential to be able to reach a "balance" through therapy: "When antibiotic drugs prove effective, as in the case of the Pope according to the news released so far, the bacteria are eliminated and therefore the organism no longer needs to react with an inflammatory response of self-defense." (ANSA).