ArticleAdvances in therapy2021
Experimental and Compassionate Drug Use During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Single-Center Study.
Article in Advances in therapy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Responses to Commentaries on "Ethics as if Your Life Depended on It".Journal of empirical research on human research ethics : JERHRE · 2026Article
- Effect of Opaganib on Supplemental Oxygen and Mortality in Patients with Severe SARS-CoV-2 Based upon FIOMicroorganisms · 2024Article
- From Cytokine Storm to Cytokine Breeze: Did Lessons Learned from Immunopathogenesis Improve Immunomodulatory Treatment of Moderate-to-Severe COVID-19?Biomedicines · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionConcomitant experimental/compassionate drug administration has been all-pervasive in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. The objective of this study was to study the relationship between patient severity, the number of experimental/compassionate medications received (main outcome measure), and patient outcomes [survival to hospital discharge and length of hospital stay (LOS)].
methodsRetrospective analysis of data collected in real time during the first pandemic wave in a tertiary care hospital. Data included patient demographics, comorbidities, admission vital signs, laboratory values, most extreme respiratory intervention during hospitalization, and data regarding treatment with compassionate/experimental drugs during their stay.
resultsOverall, 292 PCR-confirmed patients with symptoms of COVID-19 were studied (March/April, 2020). Increasing respiratory support correlated with both LOS and mortality. Patients were more likely to receive more than 1 experimental/compassionate drugs as respiratory support escalated, ranging from 3% (n = 4/136) among patients on room air to 77.3% (n = 17/22) of mechanically ventilated/ECMO patients (P < 0.001, linear by linear association). The mean number of experimental/compassionate drugs received also increased with escalating respiratory support (P < 0.001, one-way ANOVA). After adjustment for severity of patient condition, administration of more experimental/compassionate drugs was unrelated to survival (P = 0.24), but was related to increased LOS (P < 0.001).
conclusionPatients that were hospitalized in worse condition were more likely to receive more experimental/compassionate drugs. Treatment was unrelated to survival but may have been related to LOS. This finding raises questions regarding the results of studies on medication effects that adjusted for multiple drug administration.
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