Colchicine: A potential therapeutic tool against COVID-19. Experience of 5 patients

Abstract

COVID-19 is a newly emerged disease that has become a global public health challenge. Due to a lack of knowledge about the virus, a significant number of potential targets for using a particular drug have been proposed. Five cases with a clinical history of biopolymers in the gluteal region that developed iatrogenic allogenosis (IA) are presented here. The 5 cases were put under colchicine treatment for IA crisis and had non-specific symptoms (headache, cough without dyspnea, and arthralgias) with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test. Their close contacts had mild to severe symptoms and three of them died. In the SARS-CoV-2 infection different inflammatory pathways are altered where colchicine reduces cytokine levels as well as the activation of macrophages, neutrophils, and the inflammasome. The possible mechanisms that colchicine may use to prevent acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in patients with COVID-19 infection are also reviewed in this article.

The effects of colchicine on hospitalized COVID-19 patients: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial

“…Although their COVID-19 PCR tests were positive, all of them were infected with mild COVID-19 without the need for hospitalization, while some of their close contacts experienced severe disease or even died (due to COVID-19). 19 Patient demographics, clinical characteristics, and duration of colchicine usage were different among patients.…”

Protein interactome analysis of ATP1B1 in alveolar epithelial cells using Co-Immunoprecipitation mass spectrometry and parallel reaction monitoring assay

“…It was found that recruiting Na, K-ATPase to the plasma membrane could improve AFC in a rat chronic heart failure model [ 47 ], which is likely to be mediated by the cytoskeleton. The microtubule-stabilizing agents, such as taxol [ 48 ] and colchicine [ 49 ], have been reported to attenuate inflammation in acute lung injury. It would be interesting to investigate whether microtubule-stabilizing agents could affect ATP1B1 by modulating TUBB4B, thereby improving AFC and alveolar epithelial barrier integrity.…”

Long-term use of colchicine: “The time to guard against chronic toxicity among patients of familial Mediterranean fever”

“…Colchicine is a cheap easily available and accessible drug that has been tried in different diseases which are not limited to gout, familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), Behcet’s disease, and constipation [ 1 ], and has recently been tried for treatment of COVID-19 [ 2 ] and heart diseases [ 3 ].…”