ArticleBMC pulmonary medicine2025
The clinical impact of prolonged steroid therapy in severe COVID-19 patients: a retrospective cohort study with propensity score matching.
Article in BMC pulmonary medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe optimal duration of steroid therapy for patients with COVID-19 remains unclear. This study compared clinical outcomes between early steroid withdrawal (EW; ≤10 days) and prolonged steroid tapering (PT; >10 days) in patients with severe COVID-19 requiring oxygen support.
methodsThis retrospective, single-center cohort study included adult patients with COVID-19 and WHO-CPS scores of 6-9 admitted to a tertiary hospital in Seoul, Republic of Korea. After 1:1 propensity score matching, 68 patients were included in each group. Primary outcomes were 28-day and 60-day mortality. Secondary outcomes included clinical aggravation, rebound pneumonia, infectious complications, readmission or emergency department (ED) revisits, duration of oxygen support, and lengths of hospitalization and ICU stay.
resultsBaseline characteristics were well balanced after matching. No significant differences were observed in 28-day mortality (5.9% vs. 10.3%, HR 0.54, 95% CI 0.16-1.84, p = 0.32) or 60-day mortality (14.7% vs. 11.8%, HR 1.22, 95% CI 0.48-3.10, p = 0.67) between PT and EW groups. Rates of clinical aggravation, rebound pneumonia, infectious complications, and readmission or ED revisit were also comparable. However, the PT group had significantly longer durations of oxygen support (17.5 vs. 13.0 days, p = 0.001), hospitalization (20.0 vs. 14.0 days, p = 0.001), and ICU stay (5.0 vs. 1.0 days, p = 0.01).
conclusionsProlonged steroid therapy beyond 10 days did not improve survival or other clinical outcomes in patients with severe COVID-19, suggesting that early steroid withdrawal may be appropriate for selected patients.
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.