NYU Grossman School of Medicine stated on Friday that the full dose anti-coagulation (blood thinner) treatments given to moderately ill patients hospitalized for COVID-19 reduced the overload on intensive care units based on three clinical trials in 300 hospitals across five continents.

The hospitals have been working together to test whether there is a greater benefit of full doses of heparin (blood thinners) to treat moderately ill hospitalized adults with COVID-19 compared to the lower heparin dose typically administered to prevent blood clots in hospitalized patients. A trend in possible reduction of mortality was observed and is being further studied.

Based on the interim results of 1000 moderately ill patients admitted to the hospital, the findings showed that full doses of blood thinners, in addition to being safe, were superior to the doses normally given to prevent blood clots in hospitalized patients. The trials are overseen by independent boards that review the data and are composed of experts in ethics, biostatistics, clinical trials and blood clotting disorders.

These three international trials include: the Randomized, Embedded, Multi-factorial Adaptive Platform Trial for Community-Acquired Pneumonia (REMAP-CAPexternal link) Therapeutic Anticoagulation; Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines-4a (ACTIV-4a) Antithrombotics Inpatient; and Antithrombotic Therapy to Ameliorate Complications of COVID-19 (ATTACCexternal link).

In addition, the trials are supported by multiple international funding organizations including Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CAN), the LifeArc Foundation, the NIH National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute (US), National Institutes of Health Research (UK), National Health and Medical Research Council (AUS) and the PREPARE and RECOVER consortia (EU).