A research team led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital has evaluated real-world evidence related to outcomes for COVID-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine analogues (with or without a macrolide).
A research team led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital has evaluated real-world evidence related to outcomes for COVID-19 patients who were treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine analogues (with or without a macrolide). Investigators found no evidence that either drug regimen reduced the death rate among patients. Patients treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine regimens were far more likely to experience abnormal, rapid heart rhythms (known as ventricular arrhythmias) than their counterparts who had not received the drugs. The team’s findings are published in The Lancet.
“No matter which way you examine the data, use of these drug regimens did not help,” said corresponding author Mandeep R. Mehra, MD, executive director of the Brigham’s Center for Advanced Heart Disease. “If anything, patients had a higher likelihood of death. We also saw a quadrupling in the rate of significant ventricular arrhythmias in patients with COVID-19 who had been treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine regimens.”
Mehra and colleagues conducted their study using the Surgical Outcomes Collaborative database, an international registry comprised of de-identified data from 671 hospitals across six continents. The analysis included data on more than 96,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. This included almost 15,000 patients who had received the anti-malarial drug chloroquine or its analog hydroxyquinone with or without an antibiotic (macrolides such as azithromycin and clarithromycin) early after COVID-19 diagnosis. The study’s primary endpoint was death or discharge from the hospital.
Read more at Brigham and Women's Hospital
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