German researchers warn not to get overwhelmed by the preliminary - promising - results of dexamethasone use in coronavirus patients. You still have to wait for the final confirmation that the drug is really working.
Recall: on Tuesday, the University of Oxford unveiled the preliminary results of treatment with dexamethasone - a steroid anti-inflammatory drug - for COVID-19 patients.
Preliminary research results show thatgiving this drug to ventilated patients could lower their death rate by a third , says a British university statement.
The Director General of the World He alth Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described it as "great news."According to him, this is the first therapy ever found to reduce mortality among those attacked by coronavirus in respiratory assisted patients.
However, the relevant data has not yet been published in any specialist journal, which would allow them to be analyzed by other experts.
And some of them are skeptical.According to Maria Vehreschild, who heads the infection center at the university clinic in Frankfurt am Main, it will only be possible to assess whether the drug is really effective. reading the original clinical documentation in detail. According to Vehreschild, such an analysis would also have to cover side effects.
On the other hand, pulmonologist Tobias Welte from the Hannover Medical School pointed out the need to checkwhether the two groups of patients- those treated with dexamethasone and those who did not receive it - were actually comparable. "Until you see the full manuscript, assessed by independent experts, the value of this study cannot be judged" - he noted.
- When considering the whole issue, it should be taken into account that dexamethasone inhibits the immune response to the coronavirus, which can lead to a slower elimination from the body, says Bernd Salzberger, head of the infectious department at the University clinic in Regensburg and president of the German Society for Infections.
In turn, according to Clemens Wendtner, the head of the departmentthe Department of Infection and Tropical Medicine of the Munich city Clinic Schwabing, it is also necessary to assess to what extent the excess amount of steroids - including dexamethasone - in the body increases the mortality of patients with severe infections of another type, i.e. the so-called superinfections.
Source: PAP