Editor’s note: Blood clots are occurring in patients diagnosed with COVID-19. This article offers some of the key treatments and recommendations you may experience when admitted to hospital and then discharged home. As well, it discusses the interim clinical guidance from the Anticoagulation Forum.
By Michael Wong (Founder/Executive Director, Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety)
An average of 274 people die from blood clots – which works out to about one death every six minutes. These statistics are pre-COVID statistics.
Because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, this may be changing. There have been reports about the development of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients with COVID-19. The International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis has collected a number of studies and case reports on thrombosis in COVID-19 patients, and the Journal of American College of Cardiology released a review of current understanding, citing many of the studies and case reports which are on the ISTH site.
This COVID-19 pandemic is proving a challenge for clinicians to care for patients diagnosed with COVID-19. The interim clinical guidance from the Anticoagulation Forum (AC Interim Guidance) discusses the challenges of diagnosing a thrombotic event in COVID patients:
“While some, but not all, laboratory findings appear similar to sepsis-associated disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC), COVID-19-induced coagulopathy (CIC) appears to be more prothrombotic than hemorrhagic. It has been postulated that CIC may be an uncontrolled immunothrombotic response to COVID-19, and there is growing evidence of venous and arterial thromboembolic events in these critically ill patients. Clinicians around the globe are challenged with rapidly identifying reasonable diagnostic, monitoring and anticoagulant strategies to safely and effectively manage these patients.”
To help patients admitted to hospital during this COVID-19 pandemic, this article published on Medium offers some of the key treatments and recommendations you may experience when admitted to hospital and then discharged home.
To read the article on Medium, please click here.
For a summary of some of the current knowledge about thrombosis in COVID-19 patients, please read the article “Greater Risk of Blood Clots in COVID-19 Patients.”
If you have questions that you’d like to ask one of our nurses, please go to our Virtual Clinic.
