Significance of heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) occurs in approximately 3% of patients receiving heparinoids. About 30–75% of patients with type 2 of HIT develop thrombosis as a result of platelet activation. The most important clinical symptom is thrombocytopenia. Patients with severe COVID-19 are among those receiving heparinoids. This meta-analysis performed to picture the current knowledge and results of published studies in this field. Three search engines were searched and 575 papers were found. After evaluation, 37 articles were finally selected of which 13 studies were quantitatively analyzed. The pooled frequency rate of suspected cases with HIT in 13 studies with 11,241 patients was 1.7%. The frequency of HIT was 8.2% in the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation subgroup with 268 patients and 0.8% in the hospitalization subgroup with 10,887 patients. The coincidence of these two conditions may increase the risk of thrombosis. Of the 37 patients with COVID-19 and confirmed HIT, 30 patients (81%) were treated in the intensive care unit or had severe COVID-19. The most commonly used anticoagulants were UFH in 22 cases (59.4%). The median platelet count before treatment was 237 (176–290) x 10³/µl and the median nadir platelet count was 52 (31–90.5) x 10³/µl.