Heparin, a drug commonly used to treat blood clots, could be a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19, according to new findings published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.
Researchers examined heparin’s impact on 98 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. It is typically administered with an injection, but these patients inhaled the drug.
Overall, taking nebulized unfractionated heparin was associated with breathing and oxygen levels that improved up to 70%.
“This drug is already available in hospitals all over the world and it is a very inexpensive drug,” lead author Frank van Haren, PhD, a specialist with the Australian National University, said in a prepared statement. “If it is as effective as our early results suggest, it could have a major impact in our fight against COVID.”
In addition, he added, heparin appears uniquely qualified to treat boost the health of these patients.
“There is no other drug that has these three different effects—anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-coagulant,” he said.
Some adverse events, including bleeding gastric ulcers requiring a transfusion and thigh hematoma, were reported in the analysis. Minor bleeding events were also observed in 16 patients.
The full study is available here.
Too early to tell?
In a statement shared with the London-based Science Media Centre, Stephen Evans, MSc, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said much more research is still needed before treatment decisions can be made based on these findings.
“This is a ‘case series’ which describes a set of patients in the hospital with COVID and treated with inhaled heparin, but no comparison group,” Evans said. “Some of the patients were already being ventilated mechanically and over 70% of them died in spite of the treatments they were given.”
The patients in this study did see “signs of some limited improvements,” Evans added, but “the study is far from justifying routine use of inhaled heparin.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.