According to a new study led by Yale Cancer Center, researchers discovered aspirin and intermediate dose anticoagulation can improve mortality rates for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The study was published in in the American Journal of Hematology.
Thrombotic complications occur at high rates in hospitalized patients with COVID‐19, yet the impact of intensive antithrombotic therapy on mortality is uncertain. Anticoagulants are medicines that help prevent blood clots. They are given to people at a high risk of getting clots to reduce their chances of developing serious conditions such as strokes and heart attacks.
The study examined in‐hospital mortality with intermediate‐dose compared to prophylactic‐dose anticoagulation, and separately with in‐hospital aspirin compared to no antiplatelet therapy, in a large, retrospective study of 2785 hospitalized adult COVID‐19 patients. The primary outcome was cumulative incidence of in‐hospital mortality.
“In summary, in our large, observational study of hospitalized patients with COVID-19, we observed a mortality benefit with intermediate-dose compared to prophylactic-dose anticoagulation and, separately, with in-hospital aspirin compared to no antiplatelet therapy,” said Alfred Lee, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology) at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven and co-senior author on the paper. “Our findings suggest that increased-intensity anticoagulation and antiplatelet therapy may be beneficial in the treatment of COVID-19.”
Among propensity-score matched patients in the anticoagulation cohort (N = 382), intermediate‐ compared to prophylactic‐dose anticoagulation was associated with a significantly lower cumulative incidence of in‐hospital death. Among propensity-score matched patients in the aspirin cohort who were not on home anti-platelet therapy (N = 638), in‐hospital aspirin compared to no antiplatelet therapy was associated with a significantly lower cumulative incidence of in‐hospital death.
Co-senior authors on the paper include Donna Neuberg, ScD and Kent Owusu, Pharm D. Co-first authors for the research include Matthew Meizlish, MPhil, George Goshua, MD, Yiwen Liu, MS, and Rebecca Fine, MD.