Possible new therapy to prevent clotting in COVID patiests
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"For more than 30 years, Northwestern Medicine’s Dr Douglas Vaughan has studied plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1– or PAI-1 for short. It’s a protein we naturally make in our bodies but it actually inhibits our ability to dissolve a blood clot."
"To test their theory, Vaughan and his team measured the level of PAI-1 in 34 COVID-19 patients at Northwestern Memorial hospital. Their findings were off the chart.
“I’ve been measuring it for over 20 years in my lab, measured it in thousands of patients. The average level of PAI-1 in a COVID patient is 10 times normal, and we’ve seen it as high as 50 times normal in some of our patients,” Vaughn said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a pretty rational target to think about.”
Thankfully, the researchers already had a drug in the works. one that reduces PAI-1 levels by 50 to 60 percent."
