The venous thromboembolisms (VTE), a known complication of surgeries, is 50 percent more likely to occur in patients with COVID-19 ongoing and nearly double in those with recent infection.
A study by the global collaboration GlobalSurg-COVIDSurg, which brings together more than 15,000 surgeons to collect data on the pandemic, adds that having VTE was associated with a five times higher risk of death within 30 days of surgery compared to patients without such clots.
VTE is a disease in which dangerous blood clots in the veins and it has been described as the leading preventable cause of death in hospitalized patients.
The study conducted by the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, and published today by Anaesthesia has included data on more than 128 thousand patients from 1,630 hospitals in 115 countries, 97 of them Spanish.
People undergoing surgery “already have a higher risk of VTE than the general public, but we found that a current or recent infection with SARS-CoV-2 it was associated with an increased risk of postoperative VTE ”, highlighted Elisabeth Li, one of the authors from the University of Birmingham.
Surgical patients have risk factors for VTE, such as immobility, surgical wounds, and systemic inflammation, and “the sum of SARS-CoV-2 infection can further increase this risk.”
For the study, the diagnosis of COVID-19 was defined as perioperative (between seven days before and 30 days after surgery); recent (between one and six weeks before surgery); previous (seven weeks or more before surgery); or no past or present diagnosis.
The data indicated that patients with perioperative SARS-CoV-2 had a 50 percent higher risk of VTE and those with recent COVID a 90 percent higher risk.
The authors noted a major limitation of the study: that no information was available on prophylactic regimens for these blood clots in veins or on preoperative anticoagulation to prevent them.
For this reason, they considered that it is “necessary to continue research to define the optimal protocols for the prevention and treatment of VTE in surgical patients in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
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