Increased Risk of Venous Thromboembolism and Higher Hypercoagulable State in Patients Recovered in Intensive Care Unit and in Medical Ward for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Between December 2019 and January 2020, a new type of coronavirus, named as "coronavirus disease 2019 - COVID-19" by the World Health Organization, has widely spread throughout the world, becoming a global health threat. The new COVID-19 is similar to other two types of coronavirus that in the past two decades have emerged as cause of severe human disease: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome CoV (MERS-CoV). Severe respiratory disease or respiratory failure are the principal symptoms of critical patients, needing a management in ICU with mechanical ventilation.18 Data coming from laboratory results show a leucopenia mainly represented by a lymphopenia, that is a cardinal feature of COVID-19. Moreover, the concentration of several serum pro-thrombotic cytokines, such as interleukins (mainly IL-6, increased in 52% of patients), TNF-α, D-Dimer are reported to be significantly higher in COVID-19 patients, and significantly higher in ICU-patients than in non-ICU patients, suggesting an increased hypercoagulable state that, joined to the other main risk factors (immobilization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, infective disease), place these patients to a potential greater risk of developing VTE complications.