Persistent Hypercoagulable State in COVID-19: A Case Series of COVID-19 Associated Pulmonary Embolism

Kok Hoe Chan; Su Lin Lim; Hamid Shaaban; Gunwant Guron; Jihad Slim

doi:10.4103/jgid.jgid_180_20

Persistent Hypercoagulable State in COVID-19: A Case Series of COVID-19 Associated Pulmonary Embolism

J Glob Infect Dis. 2021 Jan 29;13(1):38-41. doi: 10.4103/jgid.jgid_180_20. eCollection 2021 Jan-Mar.

Authors

Kok Hoe Chan¹, Su Lin Lim¹, Hamid Shaaban^{1

2}, Gunwant Guron^{1

2}, Jihad Slim^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal Medicine, Saint Michael's Medical Centre, New York Medical College, Newark, New Jersey, USA.
² Department of Hematology/Oncology, Saint Michael's Medical Centre, New York Medical College, Newark, New Jersey, USA.
³ Department of Infectious Disease, Saint Michaels' Medical Centre, New York Medical College, Newark, New Jersey, USA.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has swept through the world with millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of deaths. COVID-19-associated coagulopathy has been recognized as the major cause of morbidity and mortality. To the best of our knowledge, a majority of the cases of coagulopathy have been reported in patients with moderate-to-severe COVID-19 and limited to observations during the recovery/postcytokine storm state. Herein, we report a case series of two patients with COVID-19 who developed pulmonary embolism in the late phase of the disease. This raised the hypothesis that the risk of hypercoagulability in patients with COVID-19 can persist until the recovery phase, which would warrant a follow-up with D-dimer and fibrinogen trending, as well as postdischarge thromboprophylaxis for at least 2 weeks during the recovery phase.

Keywords: Anticoagulation; coronavirus disease 2019; hypercoagulable; pulmonary embolism; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.