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In March 2020, the RECOVERY (Randomized Evaluation of COVid-19 thERapY) trial was established as a randomized clinical trial to test a range of potential treatments for COVID-19, including low-dose dexamethasone (a steroid treatment).
According to a press release issued by the University of Oxford, more than 11,500 patients were enrolled from over 175 NHS hospitals in the UK. More than 2,100 patients were randomized to receive dexamethasone 6 mg once per day (either by mouth or by intravenous injection) for ten days and were compared with 4,321 patients randomized to usual care alone.
Among the patients who received usual care alone, 28-day mortality was highest in those who required ventilation (41%), intermediate in those patients who required oxygen only (25%), and lowest among those who did not require any respiratory intervention (13%). Dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third in ventilated patients (rate ratio 0.65 [95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.88]; p=0.0003) and by one fifth in other patients receiving oxygen only (0.80 [0.67 to 0.96]; p=0.0021). There was no benefit among those patients who did not require respiratory support (1.22 [0.86 to 1.75]; p=0.14).
Based on these results, one death would be prevented by treatment of around eight ventilated patients, or around 25 patients requiring oxygen alone. Peter Horby, professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and one of the chief investigators for the trial, said: “Dexamethasone is the first drug to be shown to improve survival in COVID-19. This is an extremely welcome result. The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
An article in STAT News cautions that “full data from the study have not been published or subjected to scientific scrutiny” but conceded that outside experts had “embraced the top-line results.”
Source: BBC