A team of US researchers led by an Indian American scientist has reported the first instance of Covid-19 triggering a rare recurrence of potentially serious blood clots in patient’s arms.
The discovery, published in the journal Viruses, improves the understanding of how inflammation caused by Covid can lead to upper extremity blood clots and how best to treat them.
While there have been reports of lower extremity deep vein thrombosis following Covid-19, this is the first study in which the disease triggered a recurrence in the upper arm of an active 85-year-old man who had a prior diagnosis of upper extremity blood clots.
“The patient presented to his primary care physician with complaints of swelling in his left arm and was sent to the hospital for further management where he was diagnosed with an upper arm blood clot and an asymptomatic Covid-19 infection,” said Payal Parikh, assistant professor of medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who led the study.