Could breathing steroids help you with COVID-19?
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers have seen that people who use inhaled steroids were less linked to more serious stages of the disease. Those people, who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, could give us a tip of an intervention that is cheap and worldwide executable. Ok, but why?
Just as many other scientific findings, we first notice something different, then we test it. So was it in this case. In May 2020, European experts published a review on the natural history of the disease among different populations. In general, around 10 days after the onset of symptoms, around 20% of patients had dyspnea, but those who use inhaled corticosteroids had a smaller incidence of critical disease. It’s important to note, however, that in that population, the severe stage of COVID-19 was linked to poorer outcomes, which may be related to a smaller lung physiological reserve.
After almost one year, we got new information on this topic. Researchers from Oxford University published a paper on Lancet respiratory Medicine, one of the most respected medicine magazines. They performed a phase 2 randomized controlled clinical trial, which demonstrated the benefit of using budesonide in the early phase of COVID-19. After 14 days of using it, there were lower taxes of hospitalization and a faster recuperation after the disease. Although we have to consider also that it has been done with a small number of participants, it shows us a direction.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the whole world has been searching for effective intervention. Many expensive methods, like new medications and equipment, have failed to show good outcomes. Now, we may have a good tool to help us managing ill people in the early stage of the disease. Until the time we control it all after mass vaccination, anything that helps must be considered and studied to improve prognosis.
References:
Inhaled corticosteroids and COVID-19: a systematic review and clinical perspective (nih.gov)