re: Alabama Board Coronavirus Thread

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This may be a dumb question but can’t they just look at how many Lupus patients have been hospitalized because of Covid to see if it works?

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I thought this was an interesting question.

According to this article, from specialists at Johns Hopkins and UCLA, the database for Lupus shows no difference in Covid 19 outcomes for Lupus patients whether they were taking HCL or not.

Speculation from the second doctor in the linked article is that, if HCL were to work at all, dosage would need to be higher than Lupus patients are normally prescribed (which is where concerns about the safety of uncommonly higher doses arises).

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Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus who received hydroxychloroquine were just as likely to develop severe COVID-19 as those who were not treated with antimalarials, according to data from the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance registry.

"The use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the prophylaxis and treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has received significant attention by politicians and media figures," Maximilian F. Konig, MD, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote in a letter published in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. “This has occurred despite limited data supporting its efficacy in COVID-19 as well as considerable concern about its safety when used at high doses (>400mg daily) and in combination with other QT interval prolonging drugs.”


“An inaccurate narrative has emerged in recent weeks that patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) who are taking HCQ as a baseline therapy are less affected by or do not develop COVID-19,” they added. “This assumption has been challenged by Monti and Montecucco, referencing data from the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance registry on patients with rheumatic disease that previously identified 19/110 (17%) patients with SLE.”

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June 15, 2020
https://www.healio.com/news/rheumatology/20200612/hydroxychloroquine-fails-to-prevent-covid19-in-patients-with-lupus