ReviewPharmacological research2021
Sex-tailored pharmacology and COVID-19: Next steps towards appropriateness and health equity.
Review in Pharmacological research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Gender-neutral vs. gender-specific strategies in school-based HPV vaccination programs: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Narrowing sex differences in pharmacotherapy following invasive angiography for coronary artery disease between 2017 and 2024.European heart journal open · 2026Article
- Sex, Age, and Previous Herpes Zoster Infection Role on Adverse Events Following Immunization with Adjuvanted Recombinant Vaccine.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Observational
- Gendering the Pandemic: Women's Health Disparities From a Human Rights Perspective.Health care analysis : HCA : journal of health philosophy and policy · 2024Article
- The glucocorticoid dose-mortality nexus in pneumonia patients: unveiling the threshold effect.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Effective Neutralizing Antibody Response Against SARS-CoV-2 Virus and Its Omicron BA.1 Variant in Fully Vaccinated Hematological Patients.Clinical and experimental medicine · 2023Article
- Sex-Related Differences in the Pharmacological Response in SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Dyslipidemia, and Diabetes Mellitus: A Narrative Review.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Pain and Clinical Presentation: A Cross-Sectional Study of Patients with New-Onset Chronic Pain in Long-COVID-19 Syndrome.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Testosterone suppression combined with high dose estrogen as potential treatment of SARS-CoV-2. A mini review.Heliyon · 2022Review
- Age- and Severity-Associated Humoral Immunity Response in COVID-19 Patients: A Cohort Study from Wuhan, China.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Booster Vaccination Decreases 28-Day All-Cause Mortality of the Elderly Hospitalized Due to SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant.Vaccines · 2022Article
- The Role of Heparin in COVID-19: An Update after Two Years of Pandemics.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- Sex differences in the utilization of drugs for COVID-19 treatment among elderly residents in a sample of Italian nursing homes.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2022Article
- Gender Differences in the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health of Italian Academic Workers.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Medium-Term Outcomes in COVID-19.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Outcomes of COVID-19 Critically Ill Extremely Elderly Patients: Analysis of a Large, National, Observational Cohort.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Hormones and Sex-Specific Medicine in Human Physiopathology.Biomolecules · 2022Review
- Sex and Gender Differences in Kidney Transplantation.Seminars in nephrology · 2022Review
- Sex-Related Factors in Cardiovascular Complications Associated to COVID-19.Biomolecules · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Making gender bias visible allows to fill the gaps in knowledge and understand health records and risks of women and men. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shown a clear gender difference in health outcomes. The more severe symptoms and higher mortality in men as compared to women are likely due to sex and age differences in immune responses. Age-associated decline in sex steroid hormone levels may mediate proinflammatory reactions in older adults, thereby increasing their risk of adverse outcomes, whereas sex hormones and/or sex hormone receptor modulators may attenuate the inflammatory response and provide benefit to COVID-19 patients. While multiple pharmacological options including anticoagulants, glucocorticoids, antivirals, anti-inflammatory agents and traditional Chinese medicine preparations have been tested to treat COVID-19 patients with varied levels of evidence in terms of efficacy and safety, information on sex-targeted treatment strategies is currently limited. Women may have more benefit from COVID-19 vaccines than men, despite the occurrence of more frequent adverse effects, and long-term safety data with newly developed vectors are eagerly awaited. The prevalent inclusion of men in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) with subsequent extrapolation of results to women needs to be addressed, as reinforcing sex-neutral claims into COVID-19 research may insidiously lead to increased inequities in health care. The huge worldwide effort with over 3000 ongoing RCTs of pharmacological agents should focus on improving knowledge on sex, gender and age as pillars of individual variation in drug responses and enforce appropriateness.
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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.