OBJECTIVES
Patients with severe COVID-19 may be at risk of longer term sequelae. Long-term clinical, immunological, pulmonary and radiological outcomes of patients treated with anti-inflammatory drugs are lacking.
METHODS
In this single-centre prospective cohort study, we assessed 90-day clinical, immunological, pulmonary and radiological outcomes of hospitalised patients with severe COVID-19 treated with tocilizumab from March 2020 to May 2020. Criteria for tocilizumab administration were oxygen saturation <93%, respiratory rate >30/min, C-reactive protein levels >75 mg/l, extensive area of ground-glass opacities or progression on computed tomography (CT). Descriptive analyses were performed using StataIC 16.
RESULTS
Between March 2020 and May 2020, 50 (27%) of 186 hospitalised patients had severe COVID-19 and were treated with tocilizumab. Of these, 52% were hospitalised on the intensive care unit (ICU) and 12% died. Eleven (22%) patients developed at least one microbiologically confirmed super-infection, of which 91% occurred on ICU. Median duration of hospitalisation was 15 days (interquartile range [IQR] 10–24) with 24 days (IQR 14–32) in ICU patients and 10 days (IQR 7–15) in non-ICU patients. At day 90, 41 of 44 survivors (93%) were outpatients. No long-term adverse events or late-onset infections were identified after acute hospital care. High SARS-CoV-2 antibody titres were found in all but one patient, who was pretreated with rituximab. Pulmonary function tests showed no obstructive patterns, but restrictive patterns in two (5.7%) and impaired diffusion capacities for carbon monoxide in 11 (31%) of 35 patients, which predominated in prior ICU patients. Twenty-one of 35 (60%) CT-scans at day 90 showed residual abnormalities, with similar distributions between prior ICU and non-ICU patients.
CONCLUSIONS
In this cohort of severe COVID-19 patients, no tocilizumab-related long-term adverse events or late-onset infections were identified. Although chest CT abnormalities were highly prevalent at day 90, the majority of patients showed normal lung function.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04351503
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.