Coagulation profile of COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU: An exploratory study

Abstract

Background Coagulation abnormalities in COVID-19 patients have not been addressed in depth. Objective To perform a longitudinal evaluation of coagulation profile of patients admitted to the ICU with COVID-19. Methods Conventional coagulation tests, rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM), platelet function, fibrinolysis, antithrombin, protein C and S were measured at days 0, 1, 3, 7 and 14. Based on median total maximum SOFA score, patients were divided in two groups: SOFA ≤ 10 and SOFA > 10. Results Thirty patients were studied. Some conventional coagulation tests, as aPTT, PT and INR remained unchanged during the study period, while alterations on others coagulation laboratory tests were detected. Fibrinogen levels were increased in both groups. ROTEM maximum clot firmness increased in both groups from Day 0 to Day 14. Moreover, ROTEM–FIBTEM maximum clot firmness was high in both groups, with a slight decrease from day 0 to day 14 in group SOFA ≤ 10 and a slight increase during the same period in group SOFA > 10. Fibrinolysis was low and decreased over time in all groups, with the most pronounced decrease observed in INTEM maximum lysis in group SOFA > 10. Also, D-dimer plasma levels were higher than normal reference range in both groups and free protein S plasma levels were low in both groups at baseline and increased over time, Finally, patients in group SOFA > 10 had lower plasminogen levels and Protein C ​​than patients with SOFA <10, which may represent less fibrinolysis activity during a state of hypercoagulability. Conclusion COVID-19 patients have a pronounced hypercoagulability state, characterized by impaired endogenous anticoagulation and decreased fibrinolysis. The magnitude of coagulation abnormalities seems to correlate with the severity of organ dysfunction. The hypercoagulability state of COVID-19 patients was not only detected by ROTEM but it much more complex, where changes were observed on the fibrinolytic and endogenous anticoagulation system.

Viscoelastometric Testing to Assess Hemostasis of COVID-19: A Systematic Review

“…Among articles reporting data about TEG, four were prospective studies [52,[59][60][61], ten were retrospective studies [51,[53][54][55][56][57][58][62][63][64], and one was a case report [65]. Among articles dealing with ROTEM, thirteen were prospective studies [28][29][30][31][32][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46], seven were retrospective studies [27,[33][34][35][36]48,49], one was a cross-sectional study [47], and four were case reports [26,37,38,50].…”

“…Testing was carried out either on admission or within the following days, but the timing of blood collection for VET was specified only for 29 studies [24,26,27,[29][30][31]33,[35][36][37][38]41,[43][44][45][46][47][48]50,53,[55][56][57][58][59][65][66][67]. In some studies, the measurements were repeated during the patientʹs stay, either because of a pre-established protocol [26,27,29,45,53,59,60,67] or because of the occurrence of a thromboembolic event [65,68]. Number of VETs performed during a patient's stay ranged from 1 to 5 [29].…”

“…In some studies, the measurements were repeated during the patientʹs stay, either because of a pre-established protocol [26,27,29,45,53,59,60,67] or because of the occurrence of a thromboembolic event [65,68]. Number of VETs performed during a patient's stay ranged from 1 to 5 [29].…”

“…Mean or median adult COVID-19 patients ages ranged from 39 [65] to 84 years [68]. Excluding case reports, the proportion of women among the studies reporting gender ranged from 0 [40] to 50% [29,33,36].…”

“…Data from ROTEM gamma, delta, and sigma were reported in one study, thirteen studies [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], and ten [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], respectively. One case report did not specify the device [26].…”