Research Roundup: All About Covid

CIDRAP: Two Drug Combos Show Protection Against Severe COVID-19 
Two new randomized, controlled trials published yesterday in the Annals of Internal Medicine describe how drug combinations lowered the risk of severe COVID-19, with one detailing use of the antidepressant fluvoxamine plus the corticosteroid budesonide, and the other outlining the monoclonal antibody duo amubarvimab plus romlusevimab. (Van Beusekom, 4/18)

CIDRAP: Early Steroid Use For Severe COVID-19 Tied To Fewer Deaths 
JAMA Network Open has published a new US national cohort study demonstrating that early administration of the steroid dexamethasone was associated with significantly reduced odds of mortality or discharge to hospice in those requiring supplemental oxygen or mechanical ventilation and/or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. (Soucheray, 4/18)

CIDRAP: Study: COVID Disturbed Sleep Patterns, Leading To Breathlessness Post-Infection
New research published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine and presented at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) suggests the altered sleep patterns in British residents hospitalized with COVID-19 likely contributed to developing breathlessness, or dyspnea following recovery from the initial illness. This is the first known study linking breathlessness and sleep disturbances, two common symptoms noted during and following COVID-19 infection. (Soucheray, 4/17)

CIDRAP: Study: Severely Ill COVID Patients At 16 Times Higher Risk For Abnormally Rapid Heartbeat 
COVID-19 patients requiring mechanical ventilation are 16 times more likely than non-severely ill peers to experience ventricular tachycardia, an abnormal heart rhythm, within 6 months, according to a study presented at this week's annual meeting of the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) in Barcelona, Spain. Ventricular tachycardia is a potentially fatal arrhythmia that occurs when the heart's ventricle beats too fast to pump enough oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. (Van Beusekom, 4/19)

CIDRAP: COVID Death Rate 5 Times Higher In Dutch Adults With Learning Disabilities In 2020-21
Dutch adults with intellectual disabilities died of COVID-19 at a rate five times higher than the general population in the first 2 years of the pandemic, finds a study published yesterday in The Lancet Public Health. (Van Beusekom, 4/17)

CIDRAP: Preprint COVID-19 Studies Subject To More 'Spin' During Pandemic
Preprint, non–peer-reviewed studies rose in visibility dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, as scientists around the global tried to decipher and describe the novel coronavirus. An analysis yesterday in JAMA shows that preprint study abstracts were more incomplete and more prone to "spin"—or deceptive persuasion—in the preprint stage compared with published study that followed. (Soucheray, 4/19)