Blood clot risk ‘remains for months’ after developing COVID-19
Even mild cases of the illness confer an increased absolute risk, study shows
Adults risk developing serious blood clots in the legs and lungs for up to six months after COVID-19, researchers warn.
Their study involved the comparison of more than one million people with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and four million people without the virus from Swedish national registries.
The team found that, after adjusting for confounders, the infected patients had a 33-fold increased risk of pulmonary embolism (PE), a fivefold increased risk of DVT and almost double the risk of bleeding in the 30 days post-infection.
The risks were also elevated in absolute terms for patients with COVID-19 compared with controls, said the researchers, from Umeå University.
