Treatment of Paraquat-Induced Lung Injury With an Anti-C5a Antibody: Potential Clinical Application*

Sun, Shihui; Jiang, Yuting; Wang, Renxi; Liu, Chenfeng; Liu, Xiaoling; Song, Nianping; Guo, Yan; Guo, Renfeng; Du, Lanying; Jiang, Shibo; Li, Yan; Qiu, Zewu; Zhao, Guangyu; Zhou, Yusen

Patients with paraquat ingestion from 20 to 60 years old. Some patients were sent to hospital 2 or 3 hours after poisoning, while some others were sent after a longer period of time. Nevertheless, the patients had similar clinical presentations and similar abnormal laboratory readings. Patients showed evidence of ALI, which included advanced changes to the air spaces in the lung lobes on chest CT (Fig. 1A) . Elevated levels of inflammatory cytokines (Supplemental Fig. 1 Table 1 , Supplemental Digital Content 3, http://links.lww.com/CCM/D161) suggested systemic inflammatory responses and multiple -organ damage. The concentrations of C5a (p < 0.01) and C5b-9 (p < 0.001) in paraquat patients were significantly higher than those in healthy donors (Fig. 1B) . Clinical data indicated that paraquat ingestion contributes to acute inflammatory responses, which is closely associated with aberrant complement activation.