Thread by @DrEricDing

💡Hopeful—ASTHMA STEROID INHALER—promising trial found early use of inhaled budesonide (usually for asthma) reduced risk of needing urgent medical care & reduced time to #COVID19 recovery by ~1 day! Also treat 8 patients➡️prevent 1 deterioration—amazing! 🧵medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

2) Clinical recovery was 1 day shorter in the budesonide arm compared to the usual care arm (median of 7 days versus 8 days respectively, p=0.007). Proportion of days with a fever and proportion of participants with at least 1 day of fever was lower in the budesonide arm.

3) Fewer participants randomised to budesonide had persistent symptoms at day 14 and day 28 compared to participants receiving usual care.

4) The mean proportion of days with a documented fever (≥37.5 C) during first 14 days, was 2.1% in the BUD and 7.7% in UC arms (p= 0.051).

Violin plots show with a statistically higher mean in the UC arm (mean difference 0.49, 95%CI 0.32 to 0.66, p<0.001).

5) in the intent-to-treat analysis, the primary outcome (COVID-19-related Urgent Care visit, Emergency Department assessment or hospitalisation) occurred in 11 participants in the usual care arm and 2 participants in the BUD treated arm (difference in proportion 0.123, p=0.009).

6) That said, viral load and oxygen saturation was not significantly affected by the treatment.

7) Ultimately, preventing urgent care and hospital visits is most critical. And the NUMBER NEEDED TO TREAT was a remarkable value of 8! That means for every 8 people treated with inhaler, 1 person was prevented from #COVID19 deterioration to an urgent-care / hospital visit! Wow.

8) The other beauty of this inhaler is that it is (relatively inexpensive) and widely available already on the market. I want to see another study confirming this, but I’m hopeful.