Steroids Breakthrough Made In Coronavirus Treatment, UPMC Says

PITTSBURGH, PA — An international team led by clinicians and scientists at UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have determined from data from 121 hospitals in eight countries that commonly available steroids can help coronavirus patients survive the illness.

The findings were made through the “Randomized Embedded Multifactorial Adaptive Platform-Community Acquired Pneumonia” trial and are reported in JAMA as part of a four-article package. The World Health Organization is updating its coronavirus treatment guidance as a result, according to UPMC.

The trial is the only U.S.-based trial to test corticosteroids — a class of drug that lowers inflammation and modulates immune system activity — for treating critically ill COVID-19 patients.

An analysis combining the REMAP-CAP data with that from six other randomized controlled trials to test corticosteroids reinforces the results of the UK RECOVERY trial reported in June, which found the steroid dexamethasone reduced deaths by 29 percent in ventilated coronavirus patients.

“It is relatively rare in medicine that you find drugs where the evidence of their effectiveness in saving lives is so consistent,” Dr. Derek Angus, chief health care innovation officer at UPMC and professor and chair of the Department of Critical Care Medicine at Pitt, said in a release.

“This is, in many respects, the single clearest answer we’ve had so far on how to manage terribly ill COVID-19 patients. People on ventilators or oxygen and under intensive care should definitely be given corticosteroids.”

Between March and June, the trial randomized 403 adult coronavirus patients admitted to an intensive care unit to receive the steroid hydrocortisone or no steroids at all. The trial found a 93 percent probability that giving patients a seven-day intravenous course of hydrocortisone would result in better outcomes than not giving the steroid. The results were consistent across age,
race and sex.