Latest study suggests hydroxychloroquine makes minimal impact as COVID-19 treatment
New research into the effectiveness of treating COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine found no significant associations between the antimalarial drug and intubation or death.
The potential use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 has been one of the biggest stories of the current pandemic. Early evidence suggested a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin might benefit COVID-19 patients, and President Donald Trump repeatedly advocated for the treatment during his daily media briefings. More recent research, however, has suggested that taking hydroxychloroquine, alone or in combination with azithromycin, can increase a patient’s risk of QTc prolongation or death. And three medical societies—the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and Heart Rhythm Society—urged physicians to use caution when using the medications to treat COVID-19 if the patient has cardiovascular disease.
This latest study, published May 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine, explored data from more than 1,4000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
“We examined the association between hydroxychloroquine use and respiratory failure at a large medical center providing care to a substantial number of patients with COVID-19 in New York City,” wrote first author Joshua Geleris, MD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and colleagues. “We hypothesized that hydroxychloroquine use would be associated with a lower risk of a composite end point of intubation or death in analyses that were adjusted for major predictors of respiratory failure and weighted according to propensity scores assessing the probability of hydroxychloroquine use.”
The team’s research included patients treated from March 7 to April 8, 2020. Seventy patients were excluded from the study because they were intubated, discharged or dead within 24 hours of presenting with symptoms.
Of the remaining patients, more than 58% received hydroxychloroquine treatments—and the researchers found no evidence of any significant associations when it came to intubation or death.
“In this analysis involving a large sample of consecutive patients who had been hospitalized with COVID-19, the risk of intubation or death was not significantly higher or lower among patients who received hydroxychloroquine than among those who did not,” the authors wrote. “Given the observational design and the relatively wide confidence interval, the study should not be taken to rule out either benefit or harm of hydroxychloroquine treatment. However, our findings do not support the use of hydroxychloroquine at present, outside randomized clinical trials testing its efficacy.”
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.