A very poorly designed hcq study. A study is like a house: Only as strong as its foundation. Analysis of why this study is unacceptable can be found in this thread. @danaparish @niro60487270 @SamParkerSenate @lymenews bmj.com/content/369/bm…
Not a prospective, randomized study. No p-values provided to assess differences between treatment and control groups at baseline, ie "control" group had almost twice as much azithromycin treatment as hcq group, higher CRP, and lower lymphocyte counts. Statistically significant?
These patients were not treated early in their illness, when an antiviral effect would be most helpful. The average duration of symptoms before admission was 7 days and hcq was begun within 48 hours after that, so patients were treated from 7-9 days after symptoms had begun.
Have they never heard of zinc? It had already been public knowledge before the onset of this study that 1) Zinc inhibits coronaviruses 2) Hcq is a zinc ionophore. To exclude zinc from a study of late treated #COVID19 patients requiring oxygen was poor judgement, in my opinion.
A primary endpoint was survival. Despite late treatment, 100% of patients treated with both azithromycin and hyrdroxychloroquine survived, but it was not included in the discussion or conclusion sections, the two parts that most docs skip to when they don't read the whole study.
