Colchicine may have therapeutic potential against COVID-19
Against the sheer scale of morbidity and death due to the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the urgency of identifying drugs and other measures that reduce these adverse outcomes is enormous.
A new study – involving an international team of researchers from Canada, the U.S. and Brazil – describes the results of colchicine in mitigating the inflammatory storm associated with COVID-19, illustrating the drug s potential for preventing a percentage of severe and critical cases.
medRxiv preprint server.
The role of inflammation in COVID-19
Evidence is building up that the so-called “cytokine storm” is key in triggering severe or critical COVID-19 disease by the associated severe and systemic inflammatory damage caused by high levels of circulating cytokines on multiple organs. Drugs that prevent or regulate inflammation could thus be helpful in reducing the risk of poor outcomes in this condition.
MONTREAL Many in the international science community reacted with disappointment and not a little frustration on Wednesday, after finally seeing statistical data from a study on the effectiveness of medication colchicine. “We can confirm that the primary outcome was not statistically significant,” said Dr. Emily McDonald a scientist at the MUHC’s Research Institute. The anti-inflammatory drug, now used to treat gout was touted by the Montreal Heart Institute just days ago in a press release, as an effective oral medication for non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients. In a Friday press release, the MHI researchers claimed the drug reduced the risk of death or hospitalization for COVID-19 by 21 per cent.