Here’s an excerpt from a new peer-reviewed Chinese study on hydroxychloroquine. Most of it is in Chinese but the abstract and references are in English. Bottom line: In a small study, 15 patients in each arm, the hydroxychloroquine group did slightly worse, but well within the big statistical error bars. Whether there will be some slight benefit or harm in a large study absolutely cannot be predicted at this time. It’s clear that it’s not even close to being a silver bullet.
What about in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, as recommended by Dr. Trump? Who the hell knows, but it’s very hard to draw conclusions from the 6 patients in the very poorly controlled French study that he was hyping. It doesn’t seem promising. Other therapies might work.
2020 年 3 月JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY March 2020http://www.zjujournal.com/med DOI : 10.3785/j.issn.1008-9292.2020.03.03 NCT04A pilot study of hydroxychloroquine in treatment of patients with common coronavirusdisease-19 (COVID-19)CHEN Jun, LIU Danping, LIU Li, LIU Ping, XU Qingnian, XIA Lu, LING Yun, HUANG Dan,;E-mail:luhongzhou@fudan.edu.cn;https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8308-5534浙江大学学报(医学版) 2020 年 3 月JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY March 2020SONG Shuli, ZHANG Dandan, QIAN Zhiping, LI Tao, SHEN Yinzhong, LU Hongzhou(Department of Infection and Immunity, Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, FudanUniversity, Shanghai 201508, China)Corresponding author: LU Hongzhou, E-mail: luhongzhou@fudan.edu.cn, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8308-5534[Abstract] Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the treatment of patients with common coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Methods:We prospectively enrolled 30 treatment-naïve patients with confirmed COVID-19 after informed consent at Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center. The patients were randomized 1:1 to HCQ group and the control group. Patients in HCQ group were given HCQ 400 mg per day for 5 daysplus conventional treatments, while those in the control group were given conventional treatment only. The primary endpoint was negative conversion rate of COVID-19 nucleic acid in respiratory pharyngeal swab on days 7 after randomization. This study has been approved by the ethics committee of Shanghai public health clinical center and registered online (NCT04261517). Results: One patient in HCQ group developed to severe during the treatment. On day 7, COVID-19 nucleic acid of throat swabs was negative in 13 (86.7%) cases in the HCQ group and14 (93.3%) cases in the control group (P>0.05). The median duration from hospitalization to virus nucleic acid negative conservation was 4 (1-9) days in HCQ group, which is comparable to that in the control group [2 (1-4) days, (U = 83.5, P > 0.05)]. The median time for bodytemperature normalization in HCQ group was 1 (0-2) after hospitalization, which was also comparable to that in the control group 1 (0-3). Radiological progression was shown on CT images in 5 cases (33.3%) of the HCQ group and 7 cases (46.7%) of the control group, and all patients showed improvement in follow-up examination. Four cases (26.7%) of the HCQ group and 3 cases (20%) of the control group had transient diarrhea and abnormal liver function (P>0.05). Conclusions: The prognosis of common COVID-19 patients is good. Larger sample size study are needed to investigate the effects of HCQ in the treatment of COVID-19. Subsequent research should determine better endpoint and fully consider the feasibility of experiments such assample size. [Key words] Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Corona virus disease-19; Novelcoronavirus pneumonia; Hydroxychloroquine; Treatment outcome; Safety2019 年 12 月,湖北省武汉市陆续出现多例不明原因肺炎,并迅速蔓延[1]。2020 年 1 月31 日,WHO 将这次疫情列为国际关注的突发公共卫生事件[2]。基因序列分析结果显示,本次疫情的病原体为β属冠状病毒,与严重急性呼吸综合征(severe acute respiratorysyndrome, SARS)病毒高度同源,国际病毒分类委员会将其命名为严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2(severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2,SARS-CoV-2),WHO 将由其感染所致的疾病正式命名为 2019 冠状病毒病(corona virus disease-19,COVID-19)[3]。SARS-CoV-2[1] CHAN J F, YUAN S, KOK K H, et al.
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