COVID-19 is marked by heightened inflammation and abnormal clotting in the blood vessels, particularly in the lungs, and is believed to contribute to progression to severe disease and death.
In a new study from St. Michael’s Hospital, researchers found that administering a full dose of a standard blood thinner early to moderately ill hospitalized patients with COVID-19 could reduce the risk of severe disease and death.
Heparin—a blood thinner given regularly at a low dose to hospitalized patients—stops clots from forming and reduces inflammation.
In the study, the team examined the benefits of administering a full dose of heparin to moderately ill patients admitted to hospital wards with COVID-19.
They found that therapeutic heparin didn’t strongly lower incidence of the primary composite of death, mechanical ventilation or ICU admission compared with low dose heparin, the odds of all-cause death were strongly reduced by 78% with heparin.
The researchers also clearly found that therapeutic heparin is beneficial in moderately ill hospitalized COVID-19 patients but not in severely ill ICU patients.
They believe that the findings may result in a change in clinical practice for moderately ill ward patients with COVID-19.
If you care about COVID, please read studies about this stuff in the blood tied to severe COVID-19 and findings of these blood pressure drugs safe for people with severe COVID-19.
For more information about COVID and your health, please see recent studies about scientists find blood vessel damage and inflammation in COVID-19 patients’ brains and results showing that these blood thinning drugs may lower death risk in COVID-19 patients.
The study is published on MedRxiv. One author of the study is Mary Cushman, M.D., M.Sc.
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