Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
- lupus erythematosus
- systemic
- arthritis
- rheumatoid
- hydroxychloroquine
- communicable diseases
- imported
- outcome assessment
- health care
The viewpoint of Graef et al resonates more each day.1 In a pandemic where the cries for certainty were met with a flow of mixed early study results, they admonish festina lente (‘make haste slowly’)! Since Graef, there have been many studies of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for treating COVID-19. These include a randomised controlled trial of 150 mild-to-moderate patients and three large observational studies, all inpatient studies that failed to show benefit of HCQ treatment for COVID-19.2–5 Now a new inpatient study, with >80% administered HCQ within 24 hours, finds HCQ associated with substantial mortality reduction.6 Festina lente indeed! A look at HCQ as prophylaxis, where its long half-life can be leveraged, may help.7
Bozzalla Cassione and colleagues described a northern Italian cohort of 165 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).8 HCQ users had 50% greater risk of COVID-19 (7.9% vs 5.3%; 95% CI for the difference −9.9% to 9.7%), but were limited by just 12 patients with COVID-19 and possible bias due to concomitant immunosuppressive therapy. A Belgian study of 225 patients with SLE found 7.9% of HCQ users and 8.2% of non-HCQ users had COVID-19 (95% CI for the difference −6.7% to 9.5%), and another Italian …
Footnotes
Correction notice This article has been corrected since it published Online First. A typographical error in the title has been corrected.
Contributors MES designed the study, made the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript. DCK provided access to the data. DCK and MJA assisted in the design and revised the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.