For once, there’s some good news about the coronavirus pandemic.
Certain cheap, widely used steroid drugs can save the lives of seriously ill Covid-19 patients.
One researcher calls it “one of the first unambiguous wins” in fighting the virus.
Steroids are not a miracle cure or a vaccine, but they give doctors and researchers important options when treating those near death from the disease.
The effectiveness of what are more formally called corticosteroids was confirmed by a “meta-analysis” of seven separate studies involving about 1,700 patients published Wednesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA).
This “study of studies” was conducted by a panel of scientists and physicians assembled by the World Health Organization (WHO), to evaluate the effects of the commonly used steroids dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone on Covid-19.
Following release of the new data, WHO “strongly recommended steroids for treatment of patients with severe or critical Covid-19 worldwide,” reports the New York Times, while recommending against giving the drugs to patients with mild disease.
The analysts “found relatively consistent benefits for using the drugs in severely ill patients,” reports the Wall Street Journal. Of 678 severely ill patients who received steroids, 32.7% (222) died, compared with 41.5% (425) of the 1,025 who had ordinary care or received a placebo,
“I’m delighted. It’s incredibly reassuring that the other trials all were lining up in the same direction.” Dr. Derek Angus of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who helped lead one of the studies, told CBS News.
“This to me feels like one of the first unambiguous wins in trying to combat Covid-19,” Angus told the Journal.
Angus and other experts strongly caution that steroids appear to be beneficial only in the very sickest hospitalized patients. No drugs have yet proven effective in treating earlier stages of the disease.
The three steroids cited in the meta-analysis “are often used by doctors to tamp down the body’s immune system, alleviating inflammation, swelling and pain,” says the Times, noting that many Covid-19 deaths are not caused by the virus itself, but by the immune system’s “overreaction” to the infection.
The Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Tracker reported Wednesday that the number of U.S. cases was approaching 6.1 million (6,092,175), while the death toll had reached 185,123.
Some Covid survivors who received steroids, including physicians who were infected early in the pandemic, call use of the drugs a “game-changer.”
CBS cites Dr. Scott Krakower, who described what happened when he received dexamethasone while battling the virus in April in New York City:
“It was the first time in … almost a month that I stopped coughing,” Krakower said, calling the experience “a mind-blowing moment.”