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The year 2020 has been plagued by the COVID‑19 pandemic that has resulted in an additional 1,800,000 deaths worldwide. Many patients who recover from Covid-19 later present with shortness of breath and fibrosis of the lungs, while some take a long time to recover from the initial infection. A drug such as pirfenidone, which has been used for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, could offer additional benefits by reverting pulmonary fibrotic damage. Here we describe a case series of five patients where addition of this drug showed marked improvement in symptoms and radiological findings. Apart from the efforts regarding understanding the pathophysiology of this new disease, we must also evaluate the proportion of patients that develop chronic lung disease due to fibrosis following COVID-19 recovery. Certainly, more attention should be given to new studies to determine the actual benefit of pirfenidone in patients with pulmonary fibrosis as a result of Covid-19 infection.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant public health crisis all over the world. The rapid spreading nature and high mortality rate of COVID-19 places a huge pressure on scientists to develop effective diagnostics and therapeutics to control the pandemic. Some scientists working on plant biotechnology together with commercial enterprises for the emergency manufacturing of diagnostics and therapeutics have aimed to fulfill the rapid demand for SARS-CoV-2 protein antigen and antibody through a rapid, scalable technology known as transient/stable expression in plants. Plant biotechnology using transient/stable expression offers a rapid solution to address this crisis through the production of low-cost diagnostics, antiviral drugs, immunotherapy, and vaccines. Transient/stable expression technology for manufacturing plant-based biopharmaceuticals is already established at commercial scale. Here, current opinions regarding how plant biotechnology can help fight against COVID-19 through the production of low-cost diagnostics and therapeutics are discussed.

We investigate the impact of lung metastasis versus metastasis of bone, brain, or liver on overall survival (OS) and thyroid cancer-specific survival (TCSS) in patients with thyroid cancer (TC). Therefore, de-identified SEER 18 registry data of primary TC patients diagnosed between 2010 and 2016 were analyzed. The primary outcome was the prognosis of TC patients with lung metastasis compared with other sites. The secondary outcomes included the prognosis comparison between patients with and without surgery and between single and multiple metastasis sites. Isolated lung metastasis was associated with worse OS and TCSS than bone metastasis (both p < 0.05) and was associated with worse OS than liver metastasis (p = 0.0467). Surgery performed either for the primary or distant site was associated with better OS and TCSS in patients with metastasis of lung or bone (p < 0.05). Isolated lung metastasis was related to better OS and TCSS than lung–liver, lung–brain, and lung–other multiple metastases. The multivariable analysis revealed that age <55 years, surgery to the primary site, and to the distant site(s) were associated with better outcomes, while T4 and Tx were associated with worse outcomes. Nevertheless, it revealed that the other race (i.e., any race other than white, black, or unknown) and male gender were associated with better TCSS only (p < 0.05). Isolated lung metastasis is associated with a worse prognosis in TC patients compared with bone or liver metastasis. Surgery performed either for the primary or distant site(s) is associated with better survival outcomes in TC patients with metastasis of lung or bone.

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