SynthesisReviews in medical virology2022
Efficacy and secondary infection risk of tocilizumab, sarilumab and anakinra in COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Reviews in medical virology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 89 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2: a systematic literature review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of tocilizumab and baricitinib among patients hospitalized for COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Pooled it
- Efficacy of tocilizumab in the treatment of COVID-19: An umbrella review.Reviews in medical virology · 2022Pooled it
- Efficacy and secondary infection risk of tocilizumab, sarilumab and anakinra in COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Reviews in medical virology · 2022Pooled it
- Observational
- The Clinical Value of Inflammatory Indicators at the Time of Secondary Infection After Treatment With Tocilizumab: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2025Article
- Review
- Design and Characterization of Bispecific and Trispecific Antibodies Targeting SARS-CoV-2.Vaccines · 2025Article
- Macrophage activation syndrome in Sepsis: from pathogenesis to clinical management.Inflammation research : official journal of the European Histamine Research Society ... [et al.] · 2024Review
- Efficacy and safety of tofacitinib on COVID-19 patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Heliyon · 2024Article
- A Population Pharmacokinetic Model of Tocilizumab in Kidney Transplant Patients Treated for Chronic Active Antibody-Mediated Rejection: Comparison of Plasma Exposure Between Intravenous and Subcutaneous Administration Schemes.BioDrugs : clinical immunotherapeutics, biopharmaceuticals and gene therapy · 2024Article
- Does timing of tocilizumab administration affect mortality in COVID-19? A Scottish multicentre retrospective cohort study.BMJ open respiratory research · 2024Observational
- Intolerance of uncertainty and internet addiction among college students in China post-pandemic era: the mediating role of future anxiety.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- COVID-19 drug discovery and treatment options.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2024Review
- Evaluation of interleukin-1 and interleukin-6 receptor antagonists in a murine model of acute lung injury.Experimental physiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Efficacy of different doses of corticosteroids in treating severe COVID-19 pneumonia.Virology journal · 2024Article
- Risk factors for healthcare-associated candidemia in adults hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection.Antimicrobial stewardship & healthcare epidemiology : ASHE · 2024Article
- Longitudinal dynamic clinical phenotypes of in-hospital COVID-19 patients across three dominant virus variants in New York.International journal of medical informatics · 2024Article
- The sharp edge of immunosuppressive treatments: infections.Turkish journal of medical sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
As the pandemic progresses, the pathophysiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is becoming clearer and the potential for immunotherapy is increasing. However, clinical efficacy and safety of immunosuppressants (including tocilizumab, sarilumab and anakinra) treatment in COVID-19 patients are not yet known. We searched PubMed, Embase Medline, Web of Science and MedRxiv using specific search terms in studies published from 1 January 2020 to 20 December 2020. In total, 33 studies, including 3073 cases and 6502 controls, were selected for meta-analysis. We found that immunosuppressant therapy significantly decreased mortality in COVID-19 patients on overall analysis (odds ratio = 0.71, 95% confidence interval = 0.57-0.89, p = 0.004). We also found that tocilizumab and anakinra significantly decreased mortality in patients without any increased risk of secondary infection. In addition, we found similar results in several subgroups. However, we found that tocilizumab therapy significantly increased the risk of fungal co-infections in COVID-19 patients. This represents the only systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the efficacy and secondary infection risk of immunosuppressant treatment in COVID-19 patients. Overall, immunosuppressants significantly decreased mortality but had no effect on increased risk of secondary infections. Our analysis of tocilizumab therapy showed a significantly increased risk of fungal co-infections in these patients.
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