CNN Maggie Fox reported that patients with Covid-19 may find help in blood thinning drugs, doctors said.
Findings from a team of researchers of the Mount Sinai Hospital found that blood clots throughout the body of Covid-19 patients complicate their conditions making it even harder for doctors to treat the disease. It appears that this observation is not isolated but has likewise troubled many other doctors who are treating patients of the disease around the world.
The team looking at this new findings are turning to anticoagulants as a remedy. They said that they are now looking at which anticoagulant will work best and what it can do.
Dr. Valentin Fuster, chief physician of the Mount Sinai Hospital and director of Mount Sinai Heart said, “This has implications already. People, I believe, should treat these patients with antithrombotics.” He added, “The patients who received anticoagulants did better than those who didn’t.”
These findings although cannot as yet be given as a solid recommendation, is the outcome of the observations that Dr. Fuster and colleagues had over 2,700 patients at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, City. New York City is one of the areas hardest hit by the viral infection of Covid-19.
March of this year the team began administering anti-clotting drugs to patients in the hospital on bedside decisions of doctors. The team took a systematic observation to determine if the drugs made a difference at all, especially on patients who were on ventilators to help them breath.
The findings are promising. Data would show that only 29% of those patients on ventilators and were given anticoagulants actually died as compared to 63% mortaility of those patients on ventilators but were not given anticoagulants.
In their report published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology, the Dr, Fuster’s team said, “Our findings suggest that systemic anticoagulants may be associated with improved outcomes in patients hospitalized with Covid-19.”
Patients that were given the blood thinners are those that show no significant risk of developing bleeding problems. Each patient received different doses and different types of anticoagulants. In this light there is still a need for a systematic study to determine the dose and drug that works best in Covid-19 cases, as Dr. Fuster stressed.
Blood clotting problems appear to be a major factor in the deaths of Covid-19 patients. Fuster said, “We have done 75 autopsies and clotting is a problem, without any question.” He added, “It starts with lungs, followed by the kidneys, the heart and it ends up in the brain.” “It is so dramatic for all of us. You feel that you can do very little except to sustain the life of the patient.”
Dr. Fuster expressed the desire to also study the effects of blood thinners to patients who are not yet sick enough to need hospitalization.
It is yet unclear why this deadly virus causes blood clot in patients. The assumption is that it could probably be a side effect of the severe inflammation caused by the viral infection.
By: Janice JC, May 8, 2020
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