With great interest, we read the recently published paper by Pascreau et al. concluding that a high blood endocan profile during COVID‑19 distinguishes moderate from severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

In a recent study including 46 patients with a diagnosis of pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) and a control group of 25 healthy individuals, there was a significant difference in the serum endocan levels between the patients and the control group.

Endocan is likely a good marker for PTE, a frequent phenomenon in COVID-19.

In a prospective postmortem evaluation of 735 consecutive SARS-CoV-2-associated deaths, on autopsy (n = 283) it was found that the majority died of pneumonia and/or diffuse alveolar damage (73.6%) but thromboses were found in 39.2% and PTE in 22.1%.

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