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Efficacy and Safety of Sarilumab in Hospitalized Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Randomized Clinical Trial

S. Sivapalasingam, D. Lederer, R. Bhore, N. Hajizadeh, G. Criner, R. Hosain, A. Mahmood, Angeliki Giannelou et al.

Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2022

457 participants · 14 citations

Abstract

Abstract Background Open-label platform trials and a prospective meta-analysis suggest efficacy of anti–interleukin (IL)-6R therapies in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) receiving corticosteroids. This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of sarilumab, an anti–IL-6R monoclonal antibody, in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Methods In this adaptive, phase 2/3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, adults hospitalized with COVID-19 received intravenous sarilumab 400 mg or placebo. The phase 3 primary analysis population included patients with critical COVID-19 receiving mechanical ventilation (MV). The primary outcome was proportion of patients with ≥1-point improvement in clinical status from baseline to day 22. Results There were 457 and 1365 patients randomized and treated in phases 2 and 3, respectively. In phase 3, patients with critical COVID-19 receiving MV (n = 298; 28.2% on corticosteroids), the proportion with ≥1-point improvement in clinical status (alive, not receiving MV) at day 22 was 43.2% for sarilumab and 35.5% for placebo (risk difference, +7.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], –7.4 to 21.3; P =.3261), a relative risk improvement of 21.7%. In post hoc analyses pooling phase 2 and 3 critical patients receiving MV, the hazard ratio for death for sarilumab vs placebo was 0.76 (95% CI, .51 to 1.13) overall and 0.49 (95% CI, .25 to .94) in patients receiving corticosteroids at baseline. Conclusions…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 457 participants or records.

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