Treating critically ill COVID-19 patients with corticosteroid drugs reduces the risk of death by 20%, an analysis of 7 international trials found, prompting the WHO to update its advice on treatment.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reinforce results that were hailed as a major breakthrough and announced in June, when dexamethasone became the first drug shown to be able to reduce death rates among severely sick COVID-19 patients.
Dexamethasone has been in widespread use in intensive care wards treating COVID-19 patients in some countries since then. Martin Landray, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Oxford who worked on the dexamethasone trial that was a key part of the pooled analysis published on Wednesday, said the results mean doctors in hospitals across the world can safely switch to using the drugs to save lives."These results are clear, and instantly usable in clinical practice," he told reporters."Among critically ill patients with COVID-19, low-dose corticosteroids...
Researchers said the benefit was shown regardless of whether patients were on ventilation at the time they started treatment.
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