• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials
  • Contributor: Axfors, Cathrine; Schmitt, Andreas M.; Janiaud, Perrine; van’t Hooft, Janneke; Abd-Elsalam, Sherief; Abdo, Ehab F.; Abella, Benjamin S.; Akram, Javed; Amaravadi, Ravi K.; Angus, Derek C.; Arabi, Yaseen M.; Azhar, Shehnoor; Baden, Lindsey R.; Baker, Arthur W.; Belkhir, Leila; Benfield, Thomas; Berrevoets, Marvin A. H.; Chen, Cheng-Pin; Chen, Tsung-Chia; Cheng, Shu-Hsing; Cheng, Chien-Yu; Chung, Wei-Sheng; Cohen, Yehuda Z.; Cowan, Lisa N.; [...]
  • imprint: Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021
  • Published in: Nature Communications
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22446-z
  • ISSN: 2041-1723
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Substantial COVID-19 research investment has been allocated to randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, which currently face recruitment challenges or early discontinuation. We aim to estimate the effects of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine on survival in COVID-19 from all currently available RCT evidence, published and unpublished. We present a rapid meta-analysis of ongoing, completed, or discontinued RCTs on hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment for any COVID-19 patients (protocol: <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="https://osf.io/QESV4/">https://osf.io/QESV4/</jats:ext-link>). We systematically identified unpublished RCTs (ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, Cochrane COVID-registry up to June 11, 2020), and published RCTs (PubMed, medRxiv and bioRxiv up to October 16, 2020). All-cause mortality has been extracted (publications/preprints) or requested from investigators and combined in random-effects meta-analyses, calculating odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), separately for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. Prespecified subgroup analyses include patient setting, diagnostic confirmation, control type, and publication status. Sixty-three trials were potentially eligible. We included 14 unpublished trials (1308 patients) and 14 publications/preprints (9011 patients). Results for hydroxychloroquine are dominated by RECOVERY and WHO SOLIDARITY, two highly pragmatic trials, which employed relatively high doses and included 4716 and 1853 patients, respectively (67% of the total sample size). The combined OR on all-cause mortality for hydroxychloroquine is 1.11 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.20; I² = 0%; 26 trials; 10,012 patients) and for chloroquine 1.77 (95%CI: 0.15, 21.13, I² = 0%; 4 trials; 307 patients). We identified no subgroup effects. We found that treatment with hydroxychloroquine is associated with increased mortality in COVID-19 patients, and there is no benefit of chloroquine. Findings have unclear generalizability to outpatients, children, pregnant women, and people with comorbidities.</jats:p>
  • Access State: Open Access