- International clinical trials confirm the hope that cheap, widely available steroid drugs can help seriously ill patients survive Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
- Based on the new evidence, the World Health Organization issued new treatment guidance, strongly recommending steroids to treat severely and critically ill patients, but not to those with mild disease.
- Corticosteroids should now be the first-line treatment for critically ill patients.
- The only other drug shown to be effective in seriously ill patients, and only modestly at that, is Remdesivir.
- Steroids like dexamethasone, hydrocortisone and methylprednisolone are often used by doctors to tamp down the body’s immune system, alleviating inflammation, swelling and pain.
- Many Covid-19 patients die not of the virus, but of the body’s overreaction to the infection.
- Steroids can have harmful side effects, especially in elderly patients, who make up the majority of very ill coronavirus patients.
- The drugs may leave patients vulnerable to other infections, may raise blood glucose levels, and may cause confusion and delirium.
- The analysis of pooled data found that steroids were linked with a one-third reduction in deaths among critically ill Covid-19 patients.
- Dexamethasone produced a 36 percent drop in deaths in 1,282 patients treated in three separate trials.
