Open Medicine (Oct 2021)

Anticoagulation is the answer in treating noncritical COVID-19 patients

  • Kabir Azad A.

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/med-2021-0354
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16, no. 1
pp. 1486 – 1492

Abstract

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All autopsy studies demonstrated widespread thrombosis and alveolar-capillary microthrombi as the cause of death among patients with COVID-19. The autopsy studies are the gold-standard for diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic strategies for any clinical scenarios. The author initially observed that patients already taking therapeutic dose of oral direct factor Xa inhibitors for an unrelated reason, have significantly better survival rates than those not taking any anticoagulants. This influenced the author to conduct a retrospective chart review of the hospitalized patients in Jackson Hospital (Alabama) to evaluate the effect of variable doses of anticoagulation among COVID-19 patients. The study found that serum inflammatory bio-marker D-dimer trends are associated with changes in oxygen requirement among patients with COVID-19, if patients present at an early stage, and titration of Enoxaparin (anticoagulation) dose based on D-dimer trends leads to increased patient survival.

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