COVID-19 Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 19 pp 18878—18888
Efficacy and safety of tocilizumab in COVID-19 patients
- 1 Department of General Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 2 Huoshenshan Hospital, Wuhan 430100, Hubei, China
- 3 Department of Gastroenterology, Hankou Hospital, Wuhan 430000, Hubei, China
- 4 Office of Medical Education, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 5 Shanghai Zhangjiang Institute of Medical Innovation, Shanghai Biotecan Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd., Shanghai 201204, China
- 6 Department of Gastroenterology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 7 Faculty of Anesthesiology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 8 Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 9 Department of Hematology, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 10 Department of Cardiac Surgery, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 11 Department of infectious diseases, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
- 12 Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Department, Changhai Hospital, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Received: May 27, 2020 Accepted: August 14, 2020 Published: October 8, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103988How to Cite
Copyright: © 2020 Zheng et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
In this retrospective study we assessed the efficacy and safety of tocilizumab in patients with critical or severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We enrolled 181 patients admitted to Huoshenshan Hospital (Wuhan, China) with confirmed COVID-19 between January 2020 and February 2020. Ninety-two patients were treated with tocilizumab, and 89 patients were treated conventionally. We analyzed the clinical manifestations, changes in CT scan images, and laboratory tests before and after tocilizumab treatment, and compared these results with the conventionally treated group. A significant reduction in the level of C-reactive protein was observed 1 week after tocilizumab administration. In some cases this meant the end of the IL-6-related cytokine storm. In addition, tocilizumab relieved fever, cough, and shortness of breath with no reported adverse drug reactions. These findings suggest tocilizumab improves clinical outcomes and is effective for treatment of patients with critical or severe COVID-19. However, future clinical trials are needed to better understand the impact of tocilizumab interference with IL-6 and provide a therapeutic strategy for treatment of COVID-19.