Life-saving coronavirus drug 'major breakthrough':
A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.
The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.
The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.
[...] The drug is already used to reduce inflammation in a range of other conditions, and it appears that it helps stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive as it tries to fight off coronavirus.
[...] In the trial, led by a team from Oxford University, around 2,000 hospital patients were given dexamethasone and were compared with more than 4,000 who did not receive the drug.
For patients on ventilators, it cut the risk of death from 40% to 28%. For patients needing oxygen, it cut the risk of death from 25% to 20%.
Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby said: "This is the only drug so far that has been shown to reduce mortality - and it reduces it significantly. It's a major breakthrough."
[...] Dexamethasone has been used since the early 1960s to treat a wide range of conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
[...] The drug is given intravenously in intensive care, and in tablet form for less seriously ill patients. So far, the only other drug proven to benefit Covid patients is remdesivir, an antiviral treatment which has been used for Ebola.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday June 17 2020, @06:59PM
Depends on context. It's a 5% improvement overall, but if you just look at your chance of death, going from 25% to 20% is a (25-20)/25 - 20% reduction in your chance of dying. If you're on a ventilator it's even better at (40-28)/40 = a 30% reduction in your chance of death.
Certainly not an earth-shattering improvement that lets us re-evaluate our pandemic response strategies, but certainly a big improvement if you're personally facing a good chance of dying within the next week or two.