Abstract
Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)/Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a pandemic disease that quickly spreads throughout the world. There are no definitive therapeutic recommendations that give benefit results until recently. Recent studies suggest that coagulopathy is one of the complications of COVID-19 that increases the mortality rate regardless of the severity. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to explore the association between systemic anticoagulant use and mortality in COVID-19 patients with various clinical conditions.
Methods: We performed a comprehensive search from several databases. The anticoagulant used in this study comprises of systemic anticoagulants such as low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) or others. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality related to anticoagulant use in COVID-19 patients. The meta-analysis was performed to see the significance of anticoagulants in decreasing the mortality rate of COVID-19 patients.
Results: 7064 patients were analyzed from 7 studies. The meta-analysis showed that systemic anticoagulant use was related with lower mortality rate (RR 0.70 [0.51, 0.97], p<0.03; I2: 87%, p<0.00001). The systematic review reported that 4 of 7 studies favor decreasing the mortality rate in COVID-19 patients administered with systemic anticoagulants.
Conclusion: Systemic use of anticoagulants was associated with a lower mortality rate in COVID-19 patients. Further studies are needed for better causation explanation. The implication of this study is to measure the mortality impact of systemic anticoagulant use in COVID-19 patients.
Patan Ahmad Setiabudi, Andry Gonius, Thoha Muhajir Albaar, Wella Karolina, Eliana Susilowati, Novi Kurnianingsih
