Doctor gambles on clot-busting drug to save virus patients

[turbinetree]

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
today

WASHINGTON (AP) — The woman was dying. New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital was about to call her husband and break the news that there was nothing left to try. Then Dr. Hooman Poor took a gamble.

With high-stress, high-stakes decisions, doctors around the world are frantically trying to figure out how COVID-19 is killing their patients so they can attempt new ways to fight back. One growing theory: In the sickest of the sick, little blood clots clog the lungs.

Poor couldn’t prove it. The tests required would further endanger his staff, who were already at risk of getting the virus. But the lung specialist saw clues that were “screaming blood clots.” So Poor pulled out a drug best known for treating strokes, and held his breath.

“I said, ‘What do we actually have to lose?’” Poor told The Associated Press. “That’s when I decided to give not just a blood thinner but a blood clot buster.”

https://apnews.com/5c0dc863f214d32a53c6280c31cf3f56

-snip-

“The residents would yell at me, ‘So and so is desaturating!’” Poor recalled. “Classically in ARDS, we think that’s because the lung is collapsing.” But it wasn’t.

Poor often treats an emergency called pulmonary embolism, a large clot in the lungs that can quickly kill. The COVID-19 patients didn’t look quite like that. Nor were their hearts struggling to pump blood into the lungs.

Then as he was doing laundry at 2 a.m., Poor remembered a rare disease in which some lung blood vessels abnormally dilate even as others are clogged. If that explains the COVID-19 contradictions, he thought, a clot-buster might help.

“I did a case series of five. This does not prove anything,” he cautioned. “Perhaps it brings light to possibilities where further research can delve into what exactly is going on.”

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.



As a heart patient and I am taking the anti-blood clotting pills to prevent the build-up...................my answer is I commend this doctor and his staff................I would tell them if I was in that situation you have to do what you have to do................go for it.................

[mucifer]

1. Rush University Hospital in Chicago is doing a study on having people lying prone (face down) while

they are on oxygen instead of the usual in bed head of bed up to see if it helps avoid people getting on ventilators.

https://www.rush.edu/clinical-trials/study-high-flow-nasal-cannula-prone-position-covid-19-acute-respiratory-distress

Hope they figure out stuff quick. So happy we have science.

[turbinetree]

2. Yepper spot on....................if it wasn't for science..... we would all be taught that the

world is flat, and the sun revolves around us, ................thank you for information................

[mucifer]

3. Wouldn't it be great if just changing the person's position in bed could make a big difference?

No drug company to deal with no side effects other than it being more uncomfortable. I really hope this one helps.

[turbinetree]

4. Yepper spot on......time will tell..........I all in what ever it would take................

[Meowmee]

5. My brother read they think it is maybe due to vasoconstriction

So dilating drugs may help too. I am on eliquis for dvt. Have covid now- stable at home. I have a lot of pain in my back. I was worried about pe but they said no, it is light pneumonia. X rays will not show smaller pe. You need a ct scan with contrast. Mine was negative when I had my last dvt and I was put on eliquis. I wonder if warfarin would be better. I was on that for the first dvt.