Moderately ill COVID-19 patients at risk developing of dangerous blood clots

COVID-19 patients who were not critically ill have been found to develop a life-threatening blood clot, or a venous thromboembolism (VTE), according to a European study. Despite coming into hospital emergency rooms with mild or moderate COVID-19, patients were noted to have developed VTE after only four weeks – 1 of every 200 mildly ill patients who had not been hospitalised and nearly 5 of every 200 moderately ill patients overall. The blood clot risk had previously been associated with severe COVID-19.

The researchers had tracked 2,292 patients for this purpose and conclude that doctors caring for mildly and moderately ill COVID-19 patients need to be aware of VTE risks.

Read: Severely ill COVID-19 patients can survive with standard treatment, according to US study

Meanwhile, researchers found hospitalised, moderately ill COVID-19 patients who are at greater risk for dangerous blood clots benefit from treatment with high doses of the blood thinner low-molecular weight heparin (LMWH). LMWH significantly reduced the odds of clot formation and death, according to data from a clinical trial: the incidence of VTE or death was 28.7% in the high-dose group, compared to 41.9% in patients getting a standard dose of LMWH – a 32% reduction in risk with high-dose heparin.

Researcher Dr. Alex Spyropoulos of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in New York, said, “We were able to prove … that d-dimer levels more than four times the upper limit of normal are able to predict a very high-risk group of hospitalised COVID-19 patients – and giving therapeutic doses of heparin in these patients works.”

[High levels of the d-dimer protein in the blood indicates a substantial risk for dangerous blood clots, especially in COVID-19 patients.]

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Tags: COVID-19, patients

Category: Features, Health alert