Therapeutic Anticoagulation with Heparin in Critically Ill Patients with Covid-19.

Goligher, Ewan C; Bradbury, Charlotte A; McVerry, Bryan J; Lawler, Patrick R; Berger, Jeffrey S; Gong, Michelle N; Carrier, Marc; Reynolds, Harmony R; Kumar, Anand; Turgeon, Alexis F; Kornblith, Lucy Z; Kahn, Susan R; Marshall, John C; Kim, Keri S; Houston, Brett L; Derde, Lennie P G; Cushman, Mary; Tritschler, Tobias; Angus, Derek C; Godoy, Lucas C; ... (2021). Therapeutic Anticoagulation with Heparin in Critically Ill Patients with Covid-19. The New England journal of medicine, 385(9), pp. 777-789. Massachusetts Medical Society 10.1056/NEJMoa2103417

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BACKGROUND

Thrombosis and inflammation may contribute to morbidity and mortality among patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). We hypothesized that therapeutic-dose anticoagulation would improve outcomes in critically ill patients with Covid-19.

METHODS

In an open-label, adaptive, multiplatform, randomized clinical trial, critically ill patients with severe Covid-19 were randomly assigned to a pragmatically defined regimen of either therapeutic-dose anticoagulation with heparin or pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis in accordance with local usual care. The primary outcome was organ support-free days, evaluated on an ordinal scale that combined in-hospital death (assigned a value of -1) and the number of days free of cardiovascular or respiratory organ support up to day 21 among patients who survived to hospital discharge.

RESULTS

The trial was stopped when the prespecified criterion for futility was met for therapeutic-dose anticoagulation. Data on the primary outcome were available for 1098 patients (534 assigned to therapeutic-dose anticoagulation and 564 assigned to usual-care thromboprophylaxis). The median value for organ support-free days was 1 (interquartile range, -1 to 16) among the patients assigned to therapeutic-dose anticoagulation and was 4 (interquartile range, -1 to 16) among the patients assigned to usual-care thromboprophylaxis (adjusted proportional odds ratio, 0.83; 95% credible interval, 0.67 to 1.03; posterior probability of futility [defined as an odds ratio <1.2], 99.9%). The percentage of patients who survived to hospital discharge was similar in the two groups (62.7% and 64.5%, respectively; adjusted odds ratio, 0.84; 95% credible interval, 0.64 to 1.11). Major bleeding occurred in 3.8% of the patients assigned to therapeutic-dose anticoagulation and in 2.3% of those assigned to usual-care pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis.

CONCLUSIONS

In critically ill patients with Covid-19, an initial strategy of therapeutic-dose anticoagulation with heparin did not result in a greater probability of survival to hospital discharge or a greater number of days free of cardiovascular or respiratory organ support than did usual-care pharmacologic thromboprophylaxis. (REMAP-CAP, ACTIV-4a, and ATTACC ClinicalTrials.gov numbers, NCT02735707, NCT04505774, NCT04359277, and NCT04372589.).

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of General Internal Medicine (DAIM) > Clinic of General Internal Medicine
04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of General Internal Medicine (DAIM) > Clinic of General Internal Medicine > Centre of Competence for General Internal Medicine

UniBE Contributor:

Tritschler, Tobias

ISSN:

1533-4406

Publisher:

Massachusetts Medical Society

Language:

English

Submitter:

Tobias Tritschler

Date Deposited:

20 Sep 2021 08:36

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:53

Publisher DOI:

10.1056/NEJMoa2103417

PubMed ID:

34351722

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/159479

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/159479

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