Should patients hospitalized for COVID-19 routinely receive extra anticoagulation or go home with a course of antithrombotics?
The first randomized controlled trial data are still emerging, leaving those questions to the realm of expert consensus statements with only observational and pre-COVID data from which to extrapolate.
The key fulcrum on which the decision rests is how elevated venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk is versus how much bleeding occurs in COVID-19 patients, noted speakers at a Pulmonary Embolism Response Team Consortium webinar on Wednesday.
A widely cited meta-analysis in
CHEST yielded a 17% estimated incidence of VTE across 47 studies in hospitalized COVID-19 patients largely on standard thromboprophylaxis, which individually ranged from 0% to 85%.
Newly identified pathway explains why antihistamine drugs often don’t work to control severe itch
January 14, 2021 SHARE Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that cells in the blood called basophils (brown in illustration) can react to allergens (round honeycomb shapes) in the environment and send itch signals to nerve cells, leading to episodes of severe itch in eczema patients that can t be treated by antihistamines. (Image: Madison Mack)
In addition to a skin rash, many eczema sufferers also experience chronic itching, but sometimes that itching can become torturous. Worse, antihistamines the standard treatment for itching and allergy often don’t help.
Wandy Beatty
A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that measuring mitochondrial DNA in the blood of patients with COVID-19 can help predict which patients are at highest risk of severe disease, requiring more intensive care. Mitochondrial DNA levels are a measure of tissue damage. Pictured are damaged mitochondria (dark grey areas) released from human lungs. The small dark dots surrounding the mitochondria are magnetic beads that carry antibodies used to isolate and study unhealthy mitochondria that have been released from dying tissues.
One of the most vexing aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is doctors’ inability to predict which newly hospitalized patients will go on to develop severe disease, including complications that require the insertion of a breathing tube, kidney dialysis or other intensive care. Knowledge of a patient’s age and underlying medical conditions can help predict such outcomes, but there are still surprises when y
Illustration by Madison Mack
Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that cells in the blood called basophils (brown in illustration) can react to allergens (round honeycomb shapes) in the environment and send itch signals to nerve cells, leading to episodes of severe itch in eczema patients that can t be treated by antihistamines.
In addition to a skin rash, many eczema sufferers also experience chronic itching, but sometimes that itching can become torturous. Worse, antihistamines the standard treatment for itching and allergy often don’t help.
New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that allergens in the environment often are to blame for episodes of acute itch in eczema patients, and that the itching often doesn’t respond to antihistamines because the itch signals are being carried to the brain along a previously unrecognized pathway that current drugs don’t target.