Does Gout Drug Lessen COVID-19 Severity?

Colchicine, an anti-inflammatory drug normally used to treat gout, does not lessen COVID-19 severity or stave off the death risk in hospitalized patients, finds new analysis published in the journal RMD Open.

Early studies suggested that colchicine might be a useful addition to the treatments available for COVID-19 infection, and it has already found its way into clinical practice in some places.

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‘Gout drug colchicine does not provide additional benefit to supportive care in the management of COVID-19 patients but it is associated with high side effect risk.’

In a bid to clarify its safety and effectiveness, researchers searched databases looking for relevant comparative clinical trial data on the use of the drug for the treatment of COVID-19 infection, published up to July 2021.

They also wanted to find out if the drug reduced death risk, the need for ventilatory support, intensive care admission, and length of hospital stay; and if its use was associated with any particular side effects.

They applied the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to assess the quality of the evidence for each of these outcomes.

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Observational studies, laboratory studies, animal studies, and studies with fewer than 10 participants were all excluded.

Out of 69 full texts assessed, 6 randomized controlled trials involving 16,148 patients with varying degrees of severity of COVID-19 were included in the data analysis.

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This showed that there was no significant reduction in the risk of death (6 studies), the need for ventilatory support (5 studies), admission to intensive care (3 studies), length of hospital stay (4 studies), or serious side effects (3 studies) between those patients treated with colchicine and those given usual supportive care only.

Patients taking colchicine also had 58% higher rates of side effects and almost double the risk of diarrhea than those given supportive care.

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The GRADE quality of the evidence was moderate for most of the outcomes studied.

The analysis findings on colchicine should be interpreted cautiously due to the inclusion of open-labeled randomized clinical trials. The analysis of efficacy and safety outcomes is based on a small number of randomized controlled trials] in control interventions.

Source-Medindia