February 26, 2021

Interleukin-6 Receptor Antagonists in Critically Ill Patients with Covid-19

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Testing and Treatment

Keywords (Tags): treatment

• A trial of two IL-6 receptor antagonists, tocilizumab and sarilumab, in critically ill hospitalized adults with confirmed COVID-19 found that in-hospital mortality in the pooled IL-6 receptor antagonist groups was 27% (108 of 395 patients), as compared with 36% (142 of 397 patients) in the group of people receiving standard care, which results in a posterior probability of >99.5% that the treatments improved in-hospital survival. 93% of all patients were treated with glucocorticoids. Both drugs were effective across all secondary outcomes, including 90-day survival and time to ICU and hospital discharge. 

Gordon et al. (Feb 25, 2021). Interleukin-6 Receptor Antagonists in Critically Ill Patients with Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2100433