Two New Papers Published in New England Journal of Medicine

Congratulations toDr. Todd Costantiniand his collaborators in the Departments of Surgery, Medicine (Pulmonary-Critical Care), and Preventive Medicine on publishing two papers last week in theNew England Journal of Medicine. In these original research papers, Dr. Costantini and colleagues from around the world quickly mobilized and enrolled patients in this randomized trial to assess therapeutic anticoagulation with heparin in critically ill and non-critically ill patients with COVID-19. Interestingly, the results were different based on the severity of COVID illness. In patients with moderate disease (i.e., not admitted to the ICU and without organ failure), initial treatment with therapeutic dose Lovenox decreased mortality and decreased cardiorespiratory failure as compared to prophylactic dose Lovenox. Conversely, in critically ill patients in the ICU, there was no benefit of therapeutic dose Lovenox versus prophylactic dose Lovenox.