Dexamethasone ‘Major Breakthrough’ in coronavirus treatment
Dexamethasone reduces deaths by up to a third in hospitalised patients with severe respiratory complications of COVID-19, the University of Oxford’s, UK randomised recovery trial has found.
“It is a major breakthrough,” Co-Chief Investigator, Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, told a news briefing. “The results are sufficiently clear, we can announce the results today and people could be treated this evening or tomorrow.”
A total of 2104 patients were randomised to receive dexamethasone 6mg once per day by mouth or by intravenous injection for 10 days and were compared with 4321 patients randomised to usual care alone.
Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients (rate ratio 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.88]; p=0.0003) and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only (0.80 [0.67 to 0.96]; p=0.0021). There was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support (1.22 [0.86 to 1.75; p=0.14). Government Chief Medical Adviser Professor Chris Whitty called it “the most important trial result for COVID-19 so far”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also said that initial clinical trial results from Oxford University showed dexamethasone, a steroid, to be lifesaving for critically ill covid-19 patients.
Source: Medscape