Listen, folks, we’ve got something important to talk about here – it’s about heparin, a big deal when you’re dealing with veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO for short. This is a life-saving machine, believe me, but it needs heparin to work right, to stop blood clots. Now, heparin, it’s nothing without antithrombin. But here’s the thing – we’ve noticed that on ECMO, heparin isn’t working like it should, and we think it’s because of this thing called acquired antithrombin deficiency. It’s a problem, a big problem.

We did this study, a great study, with 50 patients on ECMO. We checked their blood, a lot of blood, at 11 different times to see what’s happening with their antithrombin levels. And guess what? The levels, they were low, very low at the start. But then, they started to go up over time. Still, most of these patients, and I mean a whopping 64%, had low antithrombin levels. And we’re talking really low.

But here’s the kicker – even with these low antithrombin levels, it didn’t seem to affect how well heparin was working. We checked that with something called an anti-Xa assay, very scientific, very accurate. And the heparin doses, they stayed the same.

So, what we’ve got here is a situation where ECMO is causing antithrombin levels to drop, especially in the first 72 hours. But, and this is huge, it doesn’t seem to mess with the heparin. We’re talking about a moderate deficiency that doesn’t impact the big picture. It’s something, but maybe not as big of a deal as we thought. Still, we’re keeping an eye on it, because that’s what we do – we find the best ways to keep you safe and healthy.