Low-field thoracic magnetic stimulation increases peripheral oxygen saturation levels in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients

  1. Saul M. Dominguez-Nicolas
  2. Elias Manjarrez

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Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 may cause low oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) and respiratory failure in patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Hence, increased SpO 2 levels in COVID-19 patients could be crucial for their quality of life and recovery. This study aimed to demonstrate that a 30-minute single session of dorsal low-field thoracic magnetic stimulation (LF-ThMS) can be employed to increase SpO 2 levels in COVID-19 patients significantly. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the variables associated with LF-ThMS, such as frequency, magnetic flux density, and temperature in the dorsal thorax, might be correlated to SpO 2 levels in these patients.

Here we employed an LF-ThMS device to noninvasively deliver a pulsed magnetic field from 100 to 118 Hz and 10.5 to 13.1 milliTesla (i.e., 105 to 131 Gauss) to the dorsal thorax. These values are within the intensity range of several pulsed electromagnetic field devices employed in physical therapy worldwide. We designed a single-blind, sham-controlled, crossover study on 5 COVID-19 patients who underwent 2 sessions of the study (real and sham LF-ThMS) and 12 patients who underwent only the real LF-ThMS.

We found a statistically significant positive correlation between magnetic flux density, frequency, or temperature, associated with the real LF-ThMS and SpO 2 levels in all COVID-19 patients. However, the 5 patients in the sham-controlled study did not exhibit a significant change in their SpO 2 levels during sham stimulation. The employed frequencies and magnetic flux densities were safe for the patients. We did not observe adverse events after the LF-ThMS intervention.

This study is a proof-of-concept that a single session of LF-ThMS applied for 30 minutes to the dorsal thorax of 17 COVID-19 patients significantly increased their SpO 2 levels. However, future research will be needed to understand the physiological mechanisms behind this finding.

The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04895267, registered on May 20, 2021) retrospectively registered. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04895267.

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  1. Version published to 10.1097/md.0000000000027444
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.21.21256456: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study was performed following the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by a local ethics committee from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico (protocol: Oficio No. SIEP/C.I./065A/2020, book number: 2, sheet number: 133, registration number: 818, date: July 3, 2020).
    Consent: All subjects voluntarily participated with full understanding and signed informed consent.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    BlindingSubjects were blinded for the real LF-ThMS or sham stimulation conditions.
    Power AnalysisThe sample size was n=35 SpO2 measurements during seven LF-ThMS levels (including the control) in five patients of the sham-controlled experiment and n=119 SpO2 values in another 12 patients.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Advantages and limitations: The first potential advantage of the thoracic LF-ThMS is that the subjects did not require oxygen therapy with face masks, mainly because during the LF-ThMS session, the patients significantly increased their SpO2 levels 20 minutes after the LF-ThMS (p<0.001, Table 2). The second advantage is that the device for LF-ThMS is easy to reproduce, and the electronic components are not expensive. It may be possible that several pulsed electromagnetic field devices employed in physical therapy worldwide could be adapted to emit magnetic fields at 100 to 118 Hz, 10.5 to 13.1 mT (105 to 131 Gauss), and 27.5 to 44 °C. The main limitations of our study are the following. We do not know the physiological mechanisms through which the administered LF-ThMS during a 30 min session improved SpO2 levels in COVID-19 patients. We also did not explore whether the LF-ThMS intervention enhances the patients’ immune response or whether it impacts the electrical charges of the SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins or the inflammation and cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients. However, our study will motivate future investigations in this research field. Another limitation of our study is that it will be necessary to know the real temperature in the lungs associated with variations in temperature of the external dorsal thorax by LF-ThMS. It is expected that such temperatures should be lower than those on the external dorsal thorax due to the diffusion processes of heat transfer occurring ...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04895267Enrolling by invitationLow-field Thoracic Magnetic Stimulation Increases Peripheral…

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.21.21256456v1 on medRxiv