Methylprednisolone in COVID-19 Patients (Methyl19LGH)

Summary

In COVID-19 deep airway and alveolar destruction occurred due to inflammatory reaction resulting into severe pneumonia. In COVID-19, lung injury is not only due to viral damage to tissue, but it is also due to immune response that leads to activation of inflammatory cells and release of cytokines. In COVID-19 acute respiratory distress syndrome ARDS is produced due to mucinous or cellular fibromyxoid exudates, desquamation of pneumocytes and alveolar damage and hyaline membrane development and within 5-7 days disease become more aggressive due to pneumonia and respiratory failure. It is important to start the prompt and strengthen treatment for suppression of inflammatory response and cytokine storm. Methylprednisolone are the traditional immunosuppressive drugs. They are important and effective to delay the pneumonia progression and treating the ARDS. Corticosteroids are broadly used as treatment for ARDS and there was an evidence for its efficacy for treating SARS and decreasing mortality of SARS in the past. However for COVID-19 corticosteroids efficacy and safety usage is still under clinical trials

Timeline

Start

2020-05-01

Primary completion

2020-12-30

Completion

2020-12-30

Publications

• Background Wang Y, Jiang W, He Q, Wang C, Wang B, Zhou P, Dong N, Tong Q. A retrospective cohort study of methylprednisolone therapy in severe patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2020 Apr 28;5(1):57. doi: 10.1038/s41392-020-0158-2. No abstract available.
• Background Xu Z, Shi L, Wang Y, Zhang J, Huang L, Zhang C, Liu S, Zhao P, Liu H, Zhu L, Tai Y, Bai C, Gao T, Song J, Xia P, Dong J, Zhao J, Wang FS. Pathological findings of COVID-19 associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Lancet Respir Med. 2020 Apr;8(4):420-422. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30076-X. Epub 2020 Feb 18. No abstract available.
• Background Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Zhao J, Hu Y, Zhang L, Fan G, Xu J, Gu X, Cheng Z, Yu T, Xia J, Wei Y, Wu W, Xie X, Yin W, Li H, Liu M, Xiao Y, Gao H, Guo L, Xie J, Wang G, Jiang R, Gao Z, Jin Q, Wang J, Cao B. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020 Feb 15;395(10223):497-506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5. Epub 2020 Jan 24.

Drugs

Indications