Blood ozonization in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 pneumonia: a single centre experience

Abstract

The emerging outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to spread worldwide. We prescribed some promising medication to our patients with mild to moderate pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2, however such drugs as chloroquine, hydrossichloroquine, azithromycin, antivirals (lopinavir/ritonavir, darunavir/cobicistat) and immunomodulating agents (steroids, tocilizumab) were not confirmed as effective against SARS-CoV2. We, therefore, started to use auto-hemotherapy treated with an oxygen/ozone (O 2 /O 3 ) gaseous mixture as adjuvant therapy. In Udine University Hospital (Italy) we performed a case–control study involving hospitalized adult patients with confirmed COVID-19 with mild to moderate pneumonia. Clinical presentations are based upon clinical phenotypes identified by the Italian Society of Emergency and Urgency Medicine (SIMEU—Società Italiana di Medicina di Emergenza-Urgenza) and patients that met criteria of phenotypes 2 to 4 were treated with best available therapy (BAT), with or without O 3 -autohemotherapy. 60 patients were enrolled in the study: 30 patients treated with BAT and O 2 /O 3 mixture, as adjuvant therapy and 30 controls treated with BAT only. In the group treated with O 3 -autohemotherapy plus BAT, patients were younger but with more severe clinical phenotypes. A decrease of SIMEU clinical phenotypes was observed (2.70 ± 0.67 vs. 2.35 ± 0.88, p = 0.002) in all patients during hospitalization but this clinical improvement was statistically significant only in O 3 -treated patients (2.87 ± 0.78 vs. 2.27 ± 0.83, p < 0.001), differently to the control group (2.53 ± 0.51 vs. 2.43 ± 0.93, p = 0.522). No adverse events were observed associated with the application of O 2 /O 3 gaseous mixture. O 2 /O 3 therapy as adjuvant therapy could be useful in mild to moderate pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2. Randomized prospective study is ongoing [Clinical Trials.gov ID: Z7C2CA5837].

Compassionate use of rectal Ozone (O3) in severe COVID-19 pneumonia: a case-control study.

“…It is expected that older patients show worst clinical outcomes, but Ozone was effective even in older COVID-19 patients 11 . As far as we know, our study has treated the oldest patients, if compared with other ozone studies [21][22][23][24] . 21 .…”

The need for a correct oxygen-ozone autohemotherapy (O3-AHT) in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 pneumonia

“…In a very recent paper by Tascini et al, the authors reported that, using oxygen-ozone (O 2 –O 3 ) via auto-hemotherapy (O 3 -AHT) in patients with mild to moderate pneumonia, statistically significant improvements occurred in 53% of O 3 -AHT patients respect to controls treated with the solely best available therapy (BAT) [ 1 ]. The authors, moreover, reported that O 3 -AHT treated patients showed a reduced extent in the clinical stability, yet this statement appears garbling and we would like to be elucidated about its meaning [ 1 ]. The overall impression we hold from reading this article is that Tascini et al, performed quite a pre-test, for assessing ozone effectiveness, rather than a complete therapic protocol on patients, following elsewhere reported methods [ 2 ].…”

“…Flaws are therefore present due both to poor statistics and lacking standardized protocols of therapy. Despite the declared difference in age and disease severity between patients selected to undergo O 3 -AHT supporting BAT and patients with only BAT, the Wilcoxon signed rank test for this matching gives p = 0.92956 for the whole data and p = 0.94761 for data under the heading BGA-Admission (ref Table 1 in ref [ 1 ], suggesting that differences in the separate cohorts of patients were due to chance for a probability higher than 92%, i.e. that the cohorts actually belong to the same population of recruited subjects.…”

“…The authors reported that SIMEU hallmarks, used to set at least five clinical phenotypes, with exacerbation increasing degrees leading to suspected ARDS and sub-intensive care units, improved during hospitalization in the whole population of patients ( p = 0.002) and that the observed reduction in severity was more pronounced in O 3 -AHT treated patients ( p < 0.001), reported as an improvement in 53% of patients treated with O 3 -AHT respect to a 33% in the control cohort [ 1 ]. Ameliorations observed upon O 3 -AHT therapy associated with BAT regarded only 16 on 30 patients (53.3%, from SIMEU phenotype IV/III to II) and only 25% (4 on 16) from SIMEU phenotype IV to II, whereas about 40% did not change their SIMEU phenotype (91.6% type II).…”

Blood ozonization in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19 pneumonia: a single centre experience: reply

“…Furthermore, Hernández A et al, in a prospective case–control study, confirm that ozonated autohemotherapy was associated with a significantly shorter time to clinical improvement [ 4 ]. In this study the total dose of gas mixture oxygen-ozone administered was similar to the one used in own study [ 2 ] even if spread over five consecutive days [ 4 ].…”