KAIMRC Innovations - Issue 10

Page 24

Hydroxychloroquine has not been shown to have any benefits for COVID-19 patients.

Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are ineffective against COVID-19 and possibly harmful A meta-analysis of clinical trial results shows that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are of no benefit to COVID-19 patients

A

n international team, including Yaseen Arabi of KAIMRC, has confirmed that treatment with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is associated with higher mortality in patients with COVID-19 and that there is no benefit to using chloroquine (CQ) to treat the disease. All COVID-19 clinical trials involving the two drugs have been stopped.

24

December 2021

“These two drugs are used for the treatment of malaria and rheumatic disorders, and scientists had been hopeful of their potential as treatments for COVID19 thanks to their antiviral and immunomodulatory activity,” says Arabi. He served as the COVID-19 Antiviral Therapy Domain Chair of the REMAP-CAP trial, an ongoing international trial that

Axfors, C. et al. Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials.

Nature Communications 12: 2349 (2021)

L I L I BOAS / I S TOCK / G E T T Y I M AG E S P LU S

tested HCQ, and is currently testing other therapeutics against community-acquired pneumonia and COVID-19. HCQ and CQ became a focus of multiple clinical trials as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020. In several countries including the US and China, both drugs were listed as treatment options for patients in March and April 2020, even though they were known to cause potentially severe side effects. By June 2020, the FDA had revoked the emergency use authorisation of the drug, following data emerging from two high-profile trials, the RECOVERY and WHO Solidarity trials. Arabi, along with many other scientists around the globe, contributed data from their own trials to the meta-analysis project to definitively determine the efficacy of the two treatments. The meta-analysis included data from 28 ongoing, completed, or discontinued randomized clinical trials, including the REMAP-CAP trial, that used either or both drugs to treat COVID-19. The team analysed data from more than 10,000 patients. “By including data from multiple RCTs, meta-analysis increases the power to detect differences in outcome related to individual therapies,” says Arabi. “In this case, it showed that HCQ and CQ were associated with poor outcomes.” Treatment with HCQ was associated with a longer hospitalisation and a higher risk of progression to invasive ventilation and/or death. Variation in the dosage did not alter these findings, and no clinical benefit was found for CQ either, although data was limited for this particular treatment. “The analysis provides conclusive proof that neither drug should be used for COVID-19, and all trials pertaining to these treatments have stopped,” says Arabi. “Thanks to the rapid, collaborative efforts made by scientists around the world, any further harm linked to HCQ use in COVID-19 treatment has been prevented.”


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Articles inside

EXISTING DRUGS MAY HELP WITH COVID-19 TREATMENT

2min
pages 60-61

ANTICOAGULANT SATISFACTION SURVEY TRANSLATED INTO ARABIC

2min
pages 58-59

IMMUNE CHECKPOINT INHIBITORS CAUSE MILD TO SEVERE SIDE EFFECTS

2min
pages 56-57

A DYNAMIC DUO TO FIGHT MERS

2min
pages 54-55

NEW MODEL PREDICTS THE RISK OF BLOOD THINNERS FOR ARABS

2min
pages 52-53

THE MENTAL HEALTH LANDSCAPE IN SAUDI ARABIA

7min
pages 42-43

THE HIDDEN CHALLENGE

0
pages 40-41

EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN DIABETES AND COVID-19

5min
pages 28-31

DIABETES IN THE SPOTLIGHT

0
pages 26-27

ADULT VACCINATION TO TACKLE BACTERIAL DISEASES

2min
page 25

NEW TYPE 1 DIABETES TREATMENT TARGETS

6min
pages 36-39

LINK BETWEEN COVID-19 AND GENETIC VARIATIONS EXAMINED

2min
pages 22-23

HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AND CHLOROQUINE ARE INEFFECTIVE AGAINST COVID-19 AND POSSIBLY HARMFUL

2min
page 24

A PROTEIN WITH POWER OVER BLOOD VESSELS

2min
pages 8-9

GENETIC CLUES TO BETTER TACKLE SARS-COV-2 P.20 A LOOK AT COVID- 19-RELATED ETHICS

4min
pages 18-20

TINY CARRIERS TO FAST-TRACK CANCER VACCINE DELIVERY

2min
pages 14-15

SAFER, EFFECTIVE CHEMOTHER APY VIA NANOPARTICLE CARRIERS

2min
pages 12-13

REVIEWING RAPID COVID-19 TESTS

2min
page 21

FINDING LINKS BETWEEN GENES AND DISEASES

1min
page 11

GENOMIC TESTS TO HELP SAUDIS WITH HEALTHY BIRTHS

2min
page 10

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN LUNG CANCER TREATMENT

2min
pages 16-17
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