BERLIN, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- An analysis of deceased COVID-19 patients in Germany showed that treatment with blood thinners had a positive effect, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) said on Thursday.
In May last year, a UKE study showed that COVID-19 led to thrombosis and pulmonary embolism in an "unusually high number of cases." Germany's national guidelines adopted the recommendation to treat patients with blood thinners after individual risk assessment, according to the UKE.
Although autopsies of the deceased showed that COVID-19 patients could still have blood clots in the lung despite the use of blood thinners, statistical analyses showed "longer survival times since the therapy change was made," said Benjamin Ondruschka, director of the Department of Legal Medicine at the UKE.
The finding was an "important success of the joint research and underlines the importance of forensic medicine for the living," said Ondruschka. "Now we need studies that compare our results with data from surviving intensive care patients."
For the study, the UKE examined 735 COVID-19-related deaths, of which around two-thirds occurred during the second wave of the pandemic from October last year onwards. In 618 cases, the COVID-19 infection was found to be the cause of death, with most patients dying from pneumonia or thrombosis.
Only in seven percent of the examined cases had the deceased been infected with COVID-19, but "the infection was not the cause of death," the UKE noted. The examined COVID-19 victims mostly died in hospitals and often had multiple pre-existing conditions.
The most common pre-existing conditions included high blood pressure, chronic renal insufficiency or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. According to the study, 20 percent of the deceased patients also suffered from obesity. Enditem
