Is Dexamethasone the Best Treatment for COVID-19?
Data from the Recovery clinical trial testing dexamethasone as a treatment for people with COVID-19 showed that the steroid helped many of those who were sickest with the disease. The results showed that treatment with dexamethasone -- a cheap steroid that's been around for 60 years -- reduced the risk of death by about a third in patients on ventilators and by about a fifth in less-sick patients who only required oxygen.
But dexamethasone did not change the course of the disease for patients with milder symptoms who didn't require respiratory support, which makes sense considering why the steroid is helpful in the first place. The sometimes-fatal symptoms COVID-19 causes in extreme cases are apparently caused by an overreaction of the immune system to the coronavirus rather than the coronavirus itself. The steroid is thought to be acting to dampen the immune system, reducing that overreaction. In milder cases, there's no such immune system overreaction for it to ease.
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Source Fool.com
