A production line for hydroxychloroquine, an antimalaria drug that according to some studies doesn’t appear to offer a benefit to patients suffering from Covid-19.
Photo: louai beshara/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesAn antimalaria drug didn’t appear to help Covid-19 patients any more than patients who didn’t get the treatment at a New York City hospital, according to one of the largest studies so far exploring the coronavirus-fighting potential of the pills.
Patients who got the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital had about the same risk of intubation and of death as patients who didn’t receive the medicine, according to the study published online Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“Patients who received the drug didn’t fare any better than patients who didn’t,” Neil Schluger, the hospital’s chief of pulmonary and critical care and one of the study’s authors. “Our strong feeling is the drug should not be routinely administered to patients with Covid-19.”
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Dr. Schluger, who is also an epidemiology professor at Columbia University Medical Center, and the other authors expressed support for further testing of hydroxychloroquine in more rigorous clinical drug trials. Dozens of the studies are under way.
The study examining the medical records of 1,376 patients is the largest so far to look at hydroxychloroquine, which many doctors and hospitals treating Covid-19 patients have used. Another antimalaria drug, chloroquine, is also widely used.
The results aren’t definitive, however. Unlike the most rigorous drug trials, patients in the study weren’t divided at random into one group getting the drug and another that didn’t, and researchers reviewed how patients fared after the fact. Also, patients got a mix of treatments, including other drugs.
The study also couldn’t say whether hydroxychloroquine provides benefit or harm, though researchers said they didn’t observe any major harms from use of the drug.
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The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded the study.
In the study, some 60% of the patients whose records were reviewed received hydroxychloroquine.
Chloroquine was approved decades ago to treat and prevent malaria by fighting the disease parasite. Hydroxychloroquine, discovered later, is also approved to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
The pills can have rare side effects, including eye and heart problems, though doctors say hydroxychloroquine appears less toxic.
Doctors began using the drugs in coronavirus patients earlier this year, after several small studies outside the U.S. provided signs the drugs may help treat symptoms. Since then, a number of studies have raised questions about the drugs’ efficacy and safety.
An early analysis of medical records for about 600 Covid-19 patients who were given hydroxychloroquine in New York City hospitals didn’t find a statistically significant survival benefit. The full review, which is looking at a total of 1,500 patients, has yet to be released.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which had authorized emergency use of the pills, warned last month the two antimalarial drugs are linked to serious heart problems and should only be used on hospitalized patients or as part of clinical trials.
A panel convened by the NIH last month recommended against using hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin except during clinical trials. The experts cited potential heart problems the combination could cause.
Write to Jared S. Hopkins at jared.hopkins@wsj.com
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