April 30, 2020

expert reaction to study looking at tocilizumab, an antibody, and whether it could be a treatment for COVID-19

A paper, published in PNAS, reports on tocilizumab, an antibody, and whether it could be a treatment for COVID-19.

Dr Penny Ward, Visiting Professor in pharmaceutical medicine at Kings College London and the Chair of the Education and Standards Committee of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, said:

“This is a very small case series investigating the outcomes following tocilizumab treatment in 24 severe cases of COVID-19 in China.  Findings suggest that opposing IL-6 levels in these cases may be clinically beneficial.  This needs to be confirmed in randomized controlled trials, which are underway.”

‘Effective treatment of severe COVID-19 patients with tocilizumab’ by Xiaoling Xu et al. was published in PNAS on Wednesday 29 April 2020.

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2005615117

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/04/27/2005615117#T1

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

Declared interests

None received.