A new trial will send the drug to the home of the COVID-19 patients to see if it can prevent serious complications
A new global clinical trial is being launched to test whether a common anti-inflammatory drug, colchicine, can prevent serious complications caused by the new coronavirus.
The study, which will recruit 6,000 participants from the US, Canada and Europe, will examine colchicine.
Colchicine is most often used to treat gout, which is a complex form of arthritis that causes pain, swelling, redness, and tenderness in the joints, usually in the big toe.
Researchers will take a ‘contactless’ approach by shipping the drug directly to patients’ homes within 48 hours of diagnosis.
Through follow-up visits, the scientists will determine whether use of the drug can reduce hospitalization and death from COVID-19, the virus-caused disease.
Researchers from the U.S., Canada and Europe are sending colchicine (pictured), a drug widely used to treat gout, straight to the homes of coronavirus patients
The trial will investigate whether the drug can prevent patients from being hospitalized or dying. Pictured: Healthcare workers transport a man with a mechanical gas mask and oxygen cylinder from Harlem, New York, April 20
Scientists theorize that the anti-inflammatory effects of colchicine can prevent a cytokine storm, which when the body not only fights the virus, also attacks its own cells and tissues. Pictured: Medical personnel remove an individual from an ambulance at an entrance to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, April 20
The study, known as the Colchicine Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COLCORONA) Trial, is being led by the Montreal Heart Institute.
The New York University School of Medicine and the University of San Francisco (USCF) will offer hosting sites.
Additional sites will be located in Canada and Europe, but they have not yet been announced.
“This is one of the few COVID-19 studies designed specifically for patients who have not yet been hospitalized,” said Dr. Priscilla Hsue, professor of medicine at UCSF, in one statement.
“We suspect that early treatment, before the onset of severe symptoms requiring hospitalization, is the best opportunity to improve outcomes.”
Hsue points out that by the time patients have extensive lung damage, it may be too late to intervene with treatment.
Patients develop life-threatening complications as a result of a so-called cytokine storm, which occurs when the body attacks its own cells and tissues rather than just fighting the virus.
“The … study hypothesizes … that the anti-inflammatory effects of colchicine can prevent this cytokine storm and limit damage to other organs such as the heart, brain and kidneys,” Dr. David Waters, emeritus professor of cardiology at UCSF and the study’s lead investigator, said in a statement.
“Children have been relatively spared by the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, and we see the same pattern in COVID-19. This may be because cytokine storm is less likely in children. ‘
The study will be a “randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study,” meaning participants will be randomly given colchicine or a placebo. Neither she nor the doctors will know which pill they are given.
Participants who are older than 40 and who have at least one additional risk factor for serious complications, such as heart disease, can register by telephone.
The regimen requires taking a pill twice a day for three days and then once a day for the remaining 27 days.
After patients sign online consent forms, they receive medicines by email. They follow the researchers after 15 days and again after 30 days.
You can learn more about the trial of the website or you can register by calling (877) 536-6837.
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