Aspirin doesn't improve survival rates for hospitalized COVID-19 patients, a study conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford in England found, CNBC reported June 9.
Scientists hoped that aspirin, a blood thinner, could help hospitalized patients at an increased risk of blood clots forming, particularly in the lungs. The study was part of the university's global RECOVERY trial investigating possible COVID-19 treatments and included nearly 15,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
But 17 percent of people in both the group of patients receiving aspirin treatment and the group not receiving the drug died after 28 days in the hospital, CNBC reported.
"There has been a strong suggestion that blood-clotting may be responsible for deteriorating lung function and death in patients with severe COVID-19," Martin Landray, PhD, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Oxford and one of the chief investigators in the study, told CNBC. "Aspirin is inexpensive and widely used in other diseases to reduce the risk of blood clots, so it is disappointing that it did not have a major impact for these patients. This is why large randomized trials are so important — to establish which treatments work and which do not."
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