Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials

Cathrine Axfors, Andreas M Schmitt, Perrine Janiaud, Janneke Van't Hooft, Sherief Abd-Elsalam, Ehab F Abdo, Benjamin S Abella, Javed Akram, Ravi K Amaravadi, Derek C Angus, Yaseen M Arabi, Shehnoor Azhar, Lindsey R Baden, Arthur W Baker, Leila Belkhir, Thomas Benfield, Marvin A H Berrevoets, Cheng-Pin Chen, Tsung-Chia Chen, Shu-Hsing ChengChien-Yu Cheng, Wei-Sheng Chung, Yehuda Z Cohen, Lisa N Cowan, Olav Dalgard, Fernando F de Almeida E Val, Marcus V G de Lacerda, Gisely C de Melo, Lennie Derde, Vincent Dubee, Anissa Elfakir, Anthony C Gordon, Carmen M Hernandez-Cardenas, Thomas Hills, Andy I M Hoepelman, Yi-Wen Huang, Bruno Igau, Ronghua Jin, Felipe Jurado-Camacho, Khalid S Khan, Peter G Kremsner, Benno Kreuels, Cheng-Yu Kuo, Thuy Le, Yi-Chun Lin, Wu-Pu Lin, Tse-Hung Lin, Magnus Nakrem Lyngbakken, Colin McArthur, Jesper M Weehuizen,

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Substantial COVID-19 research investment has been allocated to randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, which currently face recruitment challenges or early discontinuation. We aim to estimate the effects of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine on survival in COVID-19 from all currently available RCT evidence, published and unpublished. We present a rapid meta-analysis of ongoing, completed, or discontinued RCTs on hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment for any COVID-19 patients (protocol: https://osf.io/QESV4/ ). We systematically identified unpublished RCTs (ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, Cochrane COVID-registry up to June 11, 2020), and published RCTs (PubMed, medRxiv and bioRxiv up to October 16, 2020). All-cause mortality has been extracted (publications/preprints) or requested from investigators and combined in random-effects meta-analyses, calculating odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), separately for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. Prespecified subgroup analyses include patient setting, diagnostic confirmation, control type, and publication status. Sixty-three trials were potentially eligible. We included 14 unpublished trials (1308 patients) and 14 publications/preprints (9011 patients). Results for hydroxychloroquine are dominated by RECOVERY and WHO SOLIDARITY, two highly pragmatic trials, which employed relatively high doses and included 4716 and 1853 patients, respectively (67% of the total sample size). The combined OR on all-cause mortality for hydroxychloroquine is 1.11 (95% CI: 1.02, 1.20; I² = 0%; 26 trials; 10,012 patients) and for chloroquine 1.77 (95%CI: 0.15, 21.13, I² = 0%; 4 trials; 307 patients). We identified no subgroup effects. We found that treatment with hydroxychloroquine is associated with increased mortality in COVID-19 patients, and there is no benefit of chloroquine. Findings have unclear generalizability to outpatients, children, pregnant women, and people with comorbidities.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2349
Pages (from-to)1-13
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Apr 2021

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