ArticleThe Journal of infection2020
Safety and efficacy of anti-il6-receptor tocilizumab use in severe and critical patients affected by coronavirus disease 2019: A comparative analysis.
Article in The Journal of infection, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 14 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 14 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 129 citations in OpenAlex.
- Candidemia Following Severe COVID-19 in Hospitalised and Critical Ill Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Mycoses · 2024Pooled it
- Interleukin-6 blocking agents for treating COVID-19: a living systematic review.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Comparing the efficacy of tocilizumab with corticosteroid therapy in treating COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Daru : journal of Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Effects of Tocilizumab on Adults With COVID-19 Pneumonia: A Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Development of Evidence-Based COVID-19 Management Guidelines for Local Context: The Methodological Challenges.Global health, epidemiology and genomics · 2022Pooled it
- Beneficial and harmful outcomes of tocilizumab in severe COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Pharmacotherapy · 2021Pooled it
- Tocilizumab administration for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Respirology (Carlton, Vic.) · 2021Pooled it
- Immunomodulation as Treatment for Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Systematic Review of Current Modalities and Future Directions.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2021Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analysis of tocilizumab in persons with coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19).Leukemia · 2021Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of Tocilizumab in severe and critical COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Expert review of clinical immunology · 2021Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of tocilizumab in COVID-19 patients: a living systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Optimal use of tocilizumab for severe and critical COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.F1000Research · 2021Pooled it
- Comparative efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions for the treatment of COVID-19: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.PLoS medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Chemoprophylaxis, diagnosis, treatments, and discharge management of COVID-19: An evidence-based clinical practice guideline (updated version).Military Medical Research · 2020Guideline
- Effect of tocilizumab on clinical outcomes at 15 days in patients with severe or critical coronavirus disease 2019: randomised controlled trial.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2021Trial
- Efficacy of Tocilizumab in Patients Hospitalized with Covid-19.The New England journal of medicine · 2020Trial
- The Clinical Value of Inflammatory Indicators at the Time of Secondary Infection After Treatment With Tocilizumab: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Viral sepsis: diagnosis, clinical features, pathogenesis, and clinical considerations.Military Medical Research · 2024Review
- Real-world prescription of anti-COVID-19 drugs in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Japan.PloS one · 2024Article
- Cytokine storm and translating IL-6 biology into effective treatments for COVID-19.Frontiers of medicine · 2023Review
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
20 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAs the novel SARS-CoV-2 pandemic occurred, no specific treatment was yet available. Inflammatory response secondary to viral infection might be the driver of severe diseases. We report the safety and efficacy (in terms of overall survival and hospital discharge) of the anti-IL6 tocilizumab (TCZ) in subjects with COVID-19.
methodsThis retrospective, single-center analysis included all the patients consecutively admitted to our Hospital with severe or critical COVID-19 who started TCZ treatment from March 13th to April 03rd, 2020. A 1:2 matching to patients not treated with TCZ was performed according to age, sex, severity of disease, P/F, Charlson Comorbidity Index and length of time between symptoms onset and hospital admittance. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests to compare the groups were applied. Kaplan Meier probability curves and Cox regression models for survival, hospital discharge and orotracheal intubation were used.
resultsSeventy-four patients treated with TCZ were matched with 148 matched controls. They were mainly males (81.5%), Caucasian (82.0%) and with a median age of 59 years. The majority (69.8%) showed critical stage COVID-19 disease. TCZ use was associated with a better overall survival (HR 0.499 [95% CI 0.262-0.952], p = 0.035) compared to controls but with a longer hospital stay (HR 1.658 [95% CI 1.088-2.524], p = 0.019) mainly due to biochemical, respiratory and infectious adverse events. DISCUSSION: TCZ use resulted potentially effective on COVID-19 in terms of overall survival. Caution is warranted given the potential occurrence of adverse events. FINANCIAL SUPPORT: Some of the tocilizumab doses used in the subjects included in this analysis were provided by the "Multicenter study on the efficacy and tolerability of tocilizumab in the treatment of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia" (EudraCT Number: 2020-001110-38) supported by the Italian National Agency for Drugs (AIFA). No specific funding support was planned for study design, data collection and analysis and manuscript writing of this paper.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.