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A Chicago hospital treating severely coronavirus patients with the antiviral drug from Gilead Sciences, remdesivir, is observing rapid recoveries, with almost all patients discharged in less than a week, according to an article published by STAT.
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The trial has been effective in attacking high fever and respiratory symptoms.
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The University of Chicago Medicine recruited 125 people with COVID-19 in the two Gilead phase 3 clinical trials. Of those people, 113 were in serious condition. All patients have been treated with daily infusions of remdesivir.
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“The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great. Only two patients have died, “he said. Kathleen Mullane, the infectious disease specialist at the University of Chicago who oversees remdesivir studies for the hospital.
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The same treatment is being carried out simultaneously in other institutions. Although the full results of the study cannot be determined with certainty at the moment, what generates most expectation is that to date no other clinical data of this study has been published with remdesivir.
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“What we can say at this stage is that we hope that data from ongoing studies will be available.”Gilead said in a statement.
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Mullane, meanwhile, acknowledged that “it is always difficult” to draw conclusions. “But certainly when we started [el] medication, we see the fever curves fall. ” “Now fever is not a requirement for people to go to trials, but we do see that when patients come in with a high fever, they go down pretty quickly,” he said.
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Likewise, the doctor maintained that there have even been cases of people “leaving respirators a day after starting therapy.” “Most of our patients are severe and most of them leave after six days, so that tells us that the duration of therapy does not have to be 10 days. We have very few that came out after 10 days, maybe three, “he said.
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Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Research Institute, described this treatment from the University of Chicago as “encouraging.” “Severely affected patients are at high risk of death. Therefore, if it is true that many of the 113 patients were in this category and were discharged, it’s another positive sign that the drug is effective. ”
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However, he clarified that it will be important to see more data from randomized controlled studies.
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The Gilead study included 2,400 severe patients with COVID-19, from 152 different clinical trial sites worldwide. Likewise, the moderate trial reaches 1,600 patients in 169 medical centers.
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The main objective of the trial, which is investigating five and ten day courses of remdesivir treatment, is to make a statistical comparison of patient improvement between the two treatments. Improvement is measured using a seven-point numerical scale, with death clearly being the worst scenario, and discharge from hospital being the best outcome.
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The lack of data amid the intense search for a vaccine or a treatment to treat the virus has made expectations of this drug very high.
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Slawomir Michalak, a 57-year-old factory worker from a western Chicago suburb, was among the participants in the Chicago study. One of her daughters started showing symptoms in late March. Days later he was diagnosed with coronavirus, but he always manifested mild discomfort. His father, on the other hand, had a high fever, shortness of breath, and severe pain in his back. “It felt like someone was hitting me in the lungs,” he admitted to STAT.
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On April 3, he was admitted to the hospital of the University of Medicine of Chicago, where he had to be connected to a respirator due to his respiratory difficulties. There he agreed to participate in the Gilead clinical trial. Her first infusion of remdesivir was on Saturday, April 4. “My fever dropped almost immediately and I started to feel better,” he said.
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Already on Sunday they removed the respirator. He received two daily infusions of remdesivir and on April 7, four days after entering the hospital, he was discharged. “Remdesivir was a miracle,” he said.
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