No surprise at all. Time to turn the page on this awful chapter in medical history. The Lancet study was a horrible scientific mess, in retrospect, but as I've said multiple times, it wasn't really needed to conclude that HCQ was ineffective for hospitalized patients and this randomized, standard-of-care-controlled study should put an end to the arguing, although after the Lancet mess, let's make sure there's nothing odd about the study, which is far less likely, since randomized, controlled blinded studies are far harder to screw up, especially since they use independent data monitoring boards.
We never ever should have been treating 60-80% of hospitalized COVID patients with a completely unproven treatment that wasn't showing efficacy in most observational studies and it's one more reason politicians shouldn't be recommending medical treatments. Having said that, however, it would've been nice to have results from a more definitive trial like this 6 weeks ago - it's also disappointing that we had to wait for a UK study for this info, when we have some of the best clinical research people in the world here in the US.
https://www.recoverytrial.net/news/...oquine-in-hospitalised-patients-with-covid-19
‘We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the RECOVERY Trial with immediate effect. We are now releasing the preliminary results as they have important implications for patient care and public health.
‘A total of 1542 patients were randomised to hydroxychloroquine and compared with 3132 patients randomised to usual care alone. There was no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality (25.7% hydroxychloroquine vs. 23.5% usual care; hazard ratio 1.11 [95% confidence interval 0.98-1.26]; p=0.10). There was also no evidence of beneficial effects on hospital stay duration or other outcomes.
‘These data convincingly rule out any meaningful mortality benefit of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Full results will be made available as soon as possible.
Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and Chief Investigator for the trial, said:
‘Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have received a lot of attention and have been used very widely to treat COVID patients despite the absence of any good evidence. The RECOVERY Trial has shown that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment in patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Although it is disappointing that this treatment has been shown to be ineffective, it does allow us to focus care and research on more promising drugs.’
Martin Landray, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, and Deputy Chief Investigator, said ‘There has been huge speculation and uncertainty about the role of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, but an absence of reliable information from large randomised trials. Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY Trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalised patients with this new disease. This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomised trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.’
