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Review
. 2021 Mar;16(2):309-312.
doi: 10.1007/s11739-020-02601-y. Epub 2020 Dec 24.

COVID-19 coagulopathy: is it disseminated intravascular coagulation?

Marcel Levi  1   2 , Toshiaki Iba  3
Affiliations
Review

COVID-19 coagulopathy: is it disseminated intravascular coagulation?

Marcel Levi et al. Intern Emerg Med. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

One of the significant complications of severe COVID-19 infections is a coagulopathy that seems to be related to the occurrence of venous and arterial thromboembolic disease. The coagulation changes mimic but are not identical to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). The vast majority of patients with COVID-19 do not meet the criteria for usual forms of DIC. In addition, there seem to be features of a strong local pulmonary thrombotic microangiopathy and direct endothelial cell infection and injury by the virus that affect the coagulopathic response to severe COVID-19. It seems COVID-19 leads to a distinct intravascular coagulation syndrome that may need separate diagnostic criteria.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coagulation; D-dimer; Disseminated intravascular coagulation; Pulmonary embolism; SARS-CoV-2; Thrombosis; Thrombotic microangiopathy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The characteristics of COVID-19-associated coagulopathy. COVID-19-associated coagulopathy partially overlaps with infection-induced disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), cytokine release syndrome (CRS), antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), and thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA), however, it does not meet the criteria for any of these coagulopathies
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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