FRIDAY, February 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Rheumatoid arthritis drugs may save lives of patients hospitalized with severe cases of COVID-19, according to groundbreaking clinical study.
The results, which were first announced in January, have now been peer-reviewed and published in a major medical journal.
“We are very pleased that our full results are now published after peer review. This confirms the robustness of our findings that tocilizumab and sarilumab can reduce the number of deaths by almost a quarter in the sickest patients with COVID,” said researcher Dr . Anthony Gordon. Chair of Anesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at Imperial College London in the UK.
In the study, which was originally published in November, the arthritis drugs tocilizumab (Actemra) and sarilumab (Kevzara) reduced the deaths of critically ill COVID-19 patients by nearly 9 percentage points, or about 25%. The drugs are immunomodulators called IL-6 receptor antagonists.
These drugs also significantly shortened patient hospital stays.
“On average, patients were discharged from [intensive care units] a week earlier and [left] Hospital two weeks earlier, “said Gordon, noting that” several thousand patients “had already benefited from drug use by the National Health Service in the UK.
“Other studies have now confirmed our results and so more patients will benefit from them,” he said in a college press release.
Of 353 patients in the study, some received tocilizumab or sarilumab; others received an inactive placebo.
36% of the patients given a placebo died compared with 27% of the patients given the medication (28% for tocilizumab, 22% for sarilumab).
That is, for every 12 patients treated, one life would be saved, explained the study authors.
Gordon noted that previous studies with IL-6 receptor agonists showed no clear benefit for disease progression or survival in COVID-19 patients. However, those studies included patients whose disease was less severe and whose treatment began at different stages, he said.
“One key difference could be that in our study, critically ill patients were admitted within 24 hours of starting organ support,” said Gordon. “This indicates a potential early window of treatment where the sickest patients can get the most benefit from immunomodulation treatment.”
The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on February 25th.
More information
For more information on COVID-19, please contact the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
SOURCE: Imperial College London, press release, February 25, 2021
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