Blood thinners may improve survival among hospitalized COVID-19 patients

A Mount Sinai study published in the American Journal of Cardiology demonstrates that hospitalized patients given blood thinners have significantly better outcomes than those that didn't. This agrees with emerging evidence that blood clots are a major mode of complications and deaths in COVID-19 patients, and it makes some sense that these treatments may help. Note that the biological processes underlying coagulation are similar to inflammatory and immune-related responses that are heightened in the cytokine storm leading to acute respiratory syndrome.

This paper is peer reviewed and published in a good journal, so is reliable information, and also a large sample size (2773 with 768 on blood thinners). It is observational, not randomized, so the conclusions have to be taken with a grain of salt, and should not interpreted as causal. The article says they did adjust for risk factors including age, preexisting conditions, and ethnicity. It is not clear whether propensity scores or other causal inference adjustments were made. I eagerly await the full paper. Interesting results thought and promising that we may have another potentially effective strategy to help manage advanced COVID-19!

Thanks Jason Clark for sharing!