Skepticism of Reported Dexamethasone COVID-19 Breakthrough
In This Article
- Excitement over a potential new treatment for COVID-19 left many doctors skeptical without seeing the data supporting it
- On June 16, 2020, British researchers reported that dexamethasone, a steroid medication commonly used for inflammation in other diseases, reduced COVID-19 mortality by about a third
- Kathryn Hibbert, MD, said that seeing published data on the use of dexamethasone in COVID-19 patients would help her evaluate the findings and get a better picture of which patients benefitted the most from the treatment
Excitement over a potential new treatment for COVID-19 left many doctors skeptical without seeing the data supporting it. On June 16, 2020, University of Oxford researchers reported in a press release that dexamethasone, a steroid medication commonly used for inflammation in other diseases, reduced COVID-19 mortality by about a third. Shortly after the announcement, health officials from South Korea and the U.S. cautioned against its use due to potential side effects and a lack of data on the subject.
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Kathryn Hibbert, MD, director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that published data on the use of dexamethasone in COVID-19 patients would help her evaluate the findings and get a better picture of which patients benefitted the most from the treatment.
While Dr. Hibbert is hopeful the report is true, she noted that doctors have been burned before, not just during the coronavirus pandemic, but even pre-COVID, with exciting results that when the data was examined were not as convincing.
Doctors from different parts of the U.S. seem to align on waiting for concrete data before changing practices, preferably from a peer-reviewed study in a reputable journal.
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