BLOOD THINNERS REDUCE DEATHS AMONG CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS, STUDY FINDS

By Maggie Fox, CNN  

Blood thinners appear to reduce the risk of death by up to 50% among seriously ill, hospitalized coronavirus patients, researchers reported Wednesday.

Lab technicians gather around a machine as they test samples for COVID-19 in a laboratory in Juba, South Sudan on April 6, 2020. - South Sudan reported its first coronavirus case on Sunday, one of the last African nations to confirm the presence of COVID-19 within its borders. (Photo by Alex McBride / AFP) (Photo by ALEX MCBRIDE/AFP via Getty Images)© Alex McBride/AFP/Getty Images Lab technicians gather around a machine as they test samples for COVID-19 in a laboratory in Juba, South Sudan on April 6, 2020. - South Sudan reported its first coronavirus case on Sunday, one of the last African nations to confirm the presence of COVID-19 within its borders. (Photo by Alex McBride / AFP) (Photo by ALEX MCBRIDE/AFP via Getty Images)

And patients given anticoagulants also were 30% less likely to need a ventilator to help them breathe, a team at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York reported.

Their study of more than 4,300 patients also those who died often had evidence of blood clots throughout their bodies, even though many of them had no symptoms of the problem. It's more evidence of the serious, systemwide blood clotting that coronavirus infections can cause, but the findings offer hope of countering the effect.

"Compared to no anticoagulation, both prophylactic and therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with decreased mortality and intubation," the team wrote in their report, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

It was not a randomized controlled study, the gold standard for medical research. The study's leader, Dr. Valentin Fuster, says that's next. "An international randomized trial just started with 15 institutions," Fuster told CNN. "We are comparing three types of anticoagulants that work."

Fuster's team said 60% of patients who were not given anticoagulants were discharged alive, 26% of them died in the hospital and 13% were still in the hospital.

When patients got the drug prophylactically to prevent blood clots, 75% were released alive, 22% died in the hospital and 3% were still hospitalized during the study period. The researchers said the reduction in the risk of death was similar in patients who got anticoagulants either to prevent clots, or after they began showing evidence of clotting.

Sal Mazzara is one of the survivors. He was hospitalized in early April as his coronavirus infection worsened and stayed on a ventilator for a month.