Exclusion criteria
To be eligible, a patient must have none of these exclusion criteria:
- Intubated and on mechanical ventilation or requiring immediate
intubation as per the treating clinician’s assessment
- Enrolled in another clinical trial that is unapproved for co-enrolment
- Heparin allergy or heparin-induced thrombocytopaenia (HIT)
- APTT > 120 seconds and this is not due to anticoagulant
therapy
- Platelet count < 20 x 109 per L
- Pulmonary bleeding, which is frank bleeding in the trachea, bronchi or
lungs with repeated haemoptysis or requiring repeated suctioning
- Uncontrolled bleeding
- Pregnant or might be pregnant. Females aged 18-49 years are excluded
unless there is documented hysterectomy or a pregnancy test was
performed and is negative.
- Myopathy, spinal cord injury, or nerve injury or disease with a likely
prolonged incapacity to breathe independently e.g. Guillain-Barre
syndrome
- Acute brain injury that may result in long-term disability
- Death is imminent or inevitable within 24 hours
- Treatment limitations in place, i.e. not for resuscitation, not for
ICU admission, not for invasive mechanical ventilation
- Clinician objection
- Refusal of participant (person responsible) consent