Lauded New COVID-19 Treatment Is Promising -- But It's Not a Miracle Cure

An inexpensive and widely available steroid used since the early 1960s and known for its anti-inflammatory properties is being touted as the next life-saving treatment for COVID-19 — but it’s not the miracle cure people have been hoping for. It’s called dexamethasone, and is one of several drugs tested in the world’s largest trial of existing treatments to see which might be effective on the novel coronavirus. This morning, the RECOVERY (Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy) trial, led by the University of Oxford, released preliminary findings that indicate that the drug may be able to cut the risk of death by one-third for COVID patients on ventilators, and by one-fifth for those on oxygen. But medical experts are encouraging the public to remain cautious about the results of the trial — at least until there is a published, peer-reviewed article providing more details about the study. So what exactly is dexamethasone, and how can it help treat COVID-19? Here’s what you need to know.

What is dexamethasone?
Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid (cortisone-like medicine or steroid) used as an anti-inflammatory drug on a variety of conditions including asthma, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and severe allergies, according to the Mayo Clinic. Early in the pandemic, it was clear to medical experts like Dr. Charles Powell that inflammation and immune responses to the novel coronavirus — not the virus itself — caused moderate-to-severe lung disease in COVID-19 patients. Powell — the chief of the division of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the Mount Sinai Health System and the CEO of the Mount Sinai-National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute — tells Rolling Stone that the early cases in Wuhan indicated a potential role for steroids in treating patients with moderate to severe lung involvement.

Also, dexamethasone is cheap and already available globally. The dosage used to treat COVID-19 costs approximately $6.79 per day, so typically around $44.00 for the course of treatment required for one person, the BBC reports.

What were the findings of the RECOVERY trial?
More than 11,500 patients from about 175 hospitals in the U.K. are part of the trial. It has several arms, each designed to test whether several existing drugs — including dexamethasone — could be effective in treating COVID-19. Of those patients, 2,104 were randomly assigned to take dexamethasone. Compared with the 4,321 patients in the trial assigned to receive typical COVID care alone (meaning, none of the treatments being tested), those who took dexamethasone for 10 days saw a one-third reduction in deaths in ventilated patients, and a one-fifth reduction in patients that required oxygen.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/covid-19-steroid-drug-dexamethasone-1016248/