VEXAS syndrome: What is VEXAS syndrome? Similar to the symptoms of the coronavirus and pneumonia
As of yet, humanity has not entirely recovered from the devastation wrought by COVID-19. Every sore throat or cough seems like a terminal illness now. Although the symptoms of the coronavirus and pneumonia are similar, one of the lesser-known health risks for older Americans is something different. Researchers estimate that over 13,200 men and 2,300 women over the age of 50 in the United States suffer from this illness. The medical term for this is VEXAS syndrome.
What is VEXAS syndrome?
Omim states that VEXAS syndrome is an inflammatory illness that affects adults (mainly men) and is caused by somatic mutations rather than germline alterations. This condition is distinguished by the adult onset of rheumatologic symptoms at a mean age of 64 years. Researchers found fatal outcomes in 10% of their 25 cases. A quote from Beck reads as follows: “It’s thrilling to go from trying to understand a few patients to find that the same genetic cause and the same disease are found in tens of thousands of individuals. Not just because we know that there are many patients out there who are suffering, who don’t get a diagnosis, or who don’t get the treatment that can help them and just taking a step in that direction; it’s also very surprising that you can still make these sort of discoveries despite all of the biomedical research going on.”
And VEXAS syndrome is an abbreviation, too. Every person with this syndrome has a change in a gene on the X chromosome that codes for the enzyme E1. This is because males only have one X chromosome. which makes individuals susceptible to this condition. The “S” in VEXAS comes from the fact that this mutation is somatic, meaning that it is acquired throughout a person’s lifetime as opposed to being inherited. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not authorized therapy for this. However, in order to ascertain whether or not blood stem cell transplantation may treat or cure the disease, a phase II clinical investigation is underway.