London:
Fresh studies give more information about what treatments do or don't work for Covid-19, with high-quality methods that give reliable results.
British researchers on Friday published their research on the only drug shown to improve survival — a cheap steroid called dexamethasone.
Two other studies found that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine does not help people with only mild symptoms.
For months before studies like these, learning what helps or harms has been undermined by desperation science as doctors and patients tried therapies on their own or through a host of studies not strong enough to give clear answers.
For the field to move forward and for patients' outcomes to improve, there will need to be fewer small or inconclusive studies and more like the British one, Drs. Anthony Fauci and H. Clifford Lane of the National Institutes of Health wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine.
It's now time to do more studies comparing treatments and testing combinations, said Dr. Peter Bach, a health policy expert at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Here are highlights of recent treatment developments:
DEXAMETHASONE
The British study, led by the University of Oxford, tested a type of steroid widely used to tamp down inflammation, which can become severe and prove fatal in later stages of Covid-19.
About 2,104 patients given the drug were compared to 4,321 patients getting usual care.
It reduced deaths by 36% for patients sick enough to need breathing machines: 29% on the drug died versus 41% given usual care. It curbed the risk of death by 18% for patients needing just supplemental oxygen: 23% on the drug died versus 26% of the others.
However, it seemed harmful at earlier stages or milder cases of illness: 18% of those on the drug died versus 14% of those given usual care.
The clarity of who does and does not benefit probably will result in many lives saved, Fauci and Lane wrote.
HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE
The same Oxford study also tested hydroxychloroquine in a rigorous manner and researchers previously said it did not help hospitalised patients with Covid-19.
After 28 days, about 25.7% on hydroxychloroquine had died versus 23.5% given usual care — a difference so small it could have occurred by chance. Now, details published on a research site for scientists show that the drug may have done harm.