Study of Coagulation Profile and Role of Heparin Like Effect in Patients With COVID-19

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is a pandemic, which has affected approximately 4 lakhs individuals and claimed 16,362 deaths till now. SARS-CoV-2 has been associated with myocarditis and renal dysfunction. Patients hospitalized for Covid-19 severe infection are more prone to excessive coagulation activation leading to thrombotic events both in the venous and arterial circulations, due to excessive inflammation, platelet activation, endothelial dysfunction, and stasis. Nearly 20% of COVID-19 patients present severe coagulation abnormalities, which may occur in almost all of the severe and critical ill COVID-19 cases. Concomitant venous thromboembolism (VTE), a potential cause of unexplained deaths, has been frequently reported in COVID-19 cases, but its management is still challenging due to the complexity between antithrombotic therapy and coagulation disorders. The importance of high D-dimer and Fibrin degradation product level to determine the patient prognostic and the risk of thrombosis is known. In a French study, it was found that a high rate of thromboembolic events in COVID-19 patients treated with therapeutic anticoagulation, with 56% of VTE and 6 pulmonary embolisms. Preliminary reports on COVID-19 patients' clinical and laboratory findings include thrombocytopenia, elevated D-dimer, prolonged prothrombin time, and disseminated intravascular coagulation. COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory failure present a severe hypercoagulability rather than consumptive coagulopathy. Another study highlights this common finding in most COVID-19 patients with high D-dimer levels which are associated with a worse prognosis. Cases showed significantly higher fibrinogen and D-dimer plasma levels versus healthy controls (p \< 0.0001). Markedly hypercoagulable thromboelastometry profiles were observed in COVID-19 patients, as reflected by shorter Clot Formation Time (CFT) in INTEM (p = 0.0002) and EXTEM (p = 0.01) and higher Maxim