Inexpensive Steroid May Help Treat Sickest COVID-19 Patients: What We Know
Researchers in the United Kingdom say they’ve found a drug that can drastically reduce death in patients who are severely sick with COVID-19.
In a statement published Tuesday, the researchers shared that dexamethasone — a steroid commonly used to treat inflammation — reduced deaths by about a third in COVID-19 patients on ventilators and by a fifth in patients who needed oxygen support.
The drug didn’t have a beneficial effect on patients without severe respiratory issues, according to the study, which evaluated more than 6,000 people with COVID-19.
Dexamethasone, which is widely available and inexpensive, is the first drug shown to help people with severe COVID-19 survive and should become the standard of care for very sick patients, according to the researchers.
But some health experts are skeptical about the findings and want access to the full analysis, not just a statement, proving its effectiveness.
Normally, research like this would be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“We have to be careful because there’ve been a lot of retractions with studies because of inadequate data or an issue with the data. That said, I still am encouraged by the response that they had,” Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told Healthline.
What is dexamethasone?
Dexamethasone is a steroid that works on the immune system and helps reduce inflammation, redness, and pain.
It treats asthma, allergic reactions, some types of arthritis, and certain cancers.
Dr. Onyema Ogbuagu, a Yale Medicine infectious disease doctor, says the use of steroids has often been controversial.
Dexamethasone has been used to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)Trusted Source — a severe complication of respiratory infections like COVID-19 and influenza — but the outcomes have been mixed for other diseases similar to COVID-19.
Steroids were also evaluated as a treatment for SARS and MERSTrusted Source — again, the results were varied.
Some studiesTrusted Source claimed steroids elongated patients’ hospital stays, made it harder for the body to get rid of the virus, and increased people’s risk for death.
“In prior coronavirus outbreaks [SARS and MERS], use of steroids actually had been associated with worse outcomes and mortality, which is concerning, or even just a decreased ability to clear the virus,” Ogbuagu said.
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