Blood-thinning drugs can help save lives of COVID-19 patients: UK doctors

Blood-thinning drugs can help save the lives of patients suffering from COVID-19, British doctors have discovered after finding a clear link between the disease and blood clotting. (File/AP)

• Doctors believe that using anticoagulants carefully can eventually save patients from dying of COVID-19
• “It does sort of explain the rather extraordinary clinical picture that is being observed with people becoming very hypoxic, very low on oxygen,” Prof Openshaw said

LONDON: Blood-thinning drugs can help save the lives of patients suffering from COVID-19, British doctors have discovered after finding a clear link between the disease and blood clotting.  
Specialists at the Royal Brompton Hospital’s severe respiratory failure service used hi-tech CT scans to take images of lung function in patients most seriously affected by the disease, the hospital’s website reported.  
They found that all patients tested suffered a lack of blood flow, which suggested they had clotting within the small vessels in their lungs. 
The clinical team at the hospital told the Sunday Telegraph that this “partly explains why some patients are dying of lung failure through lack of oxygen in the blood.”
Doctors believe that using anticoagulants carefully can eventually save patients from dying of the disease, but that testing will have to be rigorous and careful as the drugs can also have serious consequences. Treatment would also have to start “very early” to prevent clots forming, the website added.  
“These are very unwell patients, but I think the majority of patients will end up on significant therapeutic doses of blood-thinning agents as we learn more about this disease,” said Dr. Brijesh Patel, senior intensivist and clinical senior lecturer at Royal Brompton and Imperial College, London. “If these interventions in the blood are implemented appropriately, they will save lives.”
Prof. Peter Openshaw, a specialist in experimental medicine at Imperial College and honorary physician at St. Mary’s Hospital, expressed optimism over the discovery at the Royal Brompton Hospital.
“It does sort of explain the rather extraordinary clinical picture that is being observed with people becoming very hypoxic, very low on oxygen and not really being particularly breathless,” he said. “That would fit with it having a blood vessel origin.”
Meanwhile, a former World Health Organization (WHO) director on Saturday said COVID-19 could “burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed.”
Prof. Karol Sikora, an oncologist and chief medical officer at Rutherford Health, tweeted that he thinks the UK population has “more immunity than estimated,” and the virus could “be petering out by itself.” Sikora said a “roughly similar pattern” could be seen everywhere.