PhD students debate with leaders in advanced therapies
September 3, 2020
A preliminary study in Spanish hospitals suggests that plasma reduces mortality from covid
September 3, 2020
The World Health Organization launches an international recommendation to give these drugs to patients in critical condition
Several studies published today confirm that anti-inflammatory drugs known as corticosteroids are the most effective treatment in hospitalized Covid patients in serious condition. The results emerge from the analysis of seven clinical trials that studied 1.700 seriously ill patients in 12 countries, including Spain. The authors of the work point out that corticosteroids should become the first line of treatment for these seriously ill patients.
After the publication of these results, the World Health Organization has published an international recommendation for the use of these drugs in seriously hospitalized patients. He has also advised against their use in any other case, emphasizing that they should not be used in mild patients.
The results published today in the medical journal JAMA show that three types of corticosteroids reduce the mortality of patients who need oxygen and also those who also require artificial respiration by up to a third. These patients are already in the terminal and most dangerous phase of the disease, when their main threat is no longer so much the coronavirus infection but the uncontrolled reaction of their immune system, with a storm of proteins that generate generalized inflammation and that can end their lives.
This new work confirms and expands the results of the Recovery clinical trial, which in June demonstrated that dexamethasone was the first drug capable of saving lives against covid in seriously ill patients. The new study now provides similar data on two other corticosteroids. Hydrocortisone would reduce mortality in severe cases by 31% and methylprednisolone by 9%. These drugs are widely used, generic and cheap.
With these results, corticosteroids become the most effective treatment so far, but they are far from a total victory against covid, as Stephen Evans, pharmacologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, recalled today. “These results are solid,” he said in statements to the Science Media Center organization. “40% of patients with severe Covid die and corticosteroids manage to reduce that percentage to approximately 30%, something notable but that should not make us forget that a third of all patients in this state continue to die,” he explained. The researcher has requested that the effectiveness of these drugs and their most appropriate dosage continue to be tested.
