Active clinical trials for "COVID-19"

Bevacizumab, ZERIBEV® (Pfizer)/AVASTIN® (Roche) 25 mg/ml ®, is a recombinant humanised monoclonal IgG1 antibody It seems interesting to use bevacizumab in severe patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 requiring hospitalization in conventional unit or in ICU. This protocol CORIMUNO19-BEVA will evaluate the efficacy and safety of AVASTIN®/ ZERIBEV® (bevacizumab) COVID-19 patients hospitalized in conventional units. This phase 2 randomized clinical trial aimed at evaluating the efficacy and safety of AVASTIN®/ ZERIBEV® (bevacizumab) alone versus standard of care (SoC) in patients hospitalized in conventional units.

The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the days until reaching clinical stability after starting randomization in hospitalized patients with elevated inflammatory parameters and severe COVID-19 lung injury.

The COVID-19 pneumonia has grown to be a global public health emergency since patients were first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, which spread quickly to worldwide and presented a serious threat to public health. It is mainly characterized by fever, dry cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. Some patients may develop into rapid and deadly respiratory system injury with overwhelming inflammation in the lung. Currently, no specific drugs or vaccines are available to cure the patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. Hence, there is a large unmet need for a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19 pneumonia patients, especially the critically ill cases. The significant clinical outcome and well tolerance was observed by the adoptive transfer of allogenic MSCs. We proposed that the adoptive transfer therapy of MSCs might be an ideal choice to be used. We expect to provide new options for the treatment of critically ill COVID-19 pneumonia patients and contribute to improving the quality of life of critically ill patients.

This study aims to compare the efficacy and safety of Methylprednisolone versus Tocilizumab in improving clinical outcomes and reducing the need for ventilator support in COVID-19 patients with moderate COVID-19 disease at risk for complications of cytokine storm. Approximately 310 participants hospitalized with COVID-19 in UMMC, Hospital Sungai Buloh, Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Hospital Tuanku Jaafar will be enrolled into this study. Eligible participants will be selected based on a set of clinical, laboratory and radiological parameters indicative of early stages of CRS and lung function decline prior to being randomized at a ratio of 1:1 to receive either Tocilizumab or Methylprednisolone. Participants will be monitored daily for clinical and laboratory parameters, and at 48 hours, switched to the alternate study arm should they manifest signs and symptoms indicative of decompensation.

Contributors: Lamia Elgarhy, Sabah El-Gaeish 1, Eman Hamed 2 , Wagdy Fathy2 Department of Dermatology, Department of Pharmacology1 , Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University, Department of Chest, Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University2. Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-COV-2 has infected over 2,000,000 people causing over 150,000 deaths. A key host cellular protein required for the virus entry is angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) whose expression has been demonstrated in many tissues including alveolar epithelial type II cells in lungs, oral mucosa and intestine, heart, kidney, endothelium and skin. ACE2-expressing cells can act as home cells and are prone to SARS-CoV-2 infection as ACE2 receptor facilitates cellular viral entry and replication. (1) Fang et al. has suggested that patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus may be at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection, as these patients are often treated with ACE inhibitors (ACEIs) or angiotensin II type-I receptor blockers (ARBs), which have been previously suggested to increase ACE2 expression. (2) In another study by Sinha et al who analyzed a publicly available Connectivity Map (CMAP) dataset of pre/post transcriptomic profiles for drug treatment in cell lines for over 20,000 small molecules, isotretinoin was the strongest down-regulator of ACE 2 receptors. On the other hand, they found 6 drugs in CMAP that are currently being investigated in clinical trials for treating COVID-19 (chloroquine, thalidomide, methylprednisolone, losartan, lopinavir and ritonavir, from clinicaltrials.gov), none of which was found to significantly alter ACE2 expression (P>0.1) (3) Moreover, Wu et al, demonstrated that isotretinoin is a Potential papain like protease (PLpro) inhibitors which is a protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2 genes and considered one of the proteins that should be targeted in COVID-19 treatment by performing target-based virtual ligand screening. (4) In addition, isotretinoin was reported to increase CD4 counts and markedly decrease viremia in HIV positive patients suffering from acne vulgaris. (5) Currently, a study is running to evaluate the effect of isotretinoin on immune activation among HIV-1 infected subjects with incomplete CD4+ T cell recovery. (6) From this point, we can suggest that patient taking isotretinoin therapy may be immune against SARS-COV-2 and it can also have a therapeutic effect by prevention of further progression of the virus. Several potential mechanisms of action of Chloroquine/Hydroxychloroquine against SARS-CoV-2 have been postulated and they are actually used in treatment regimens for COVID-19.(7) It was reported that chloroquine increase the blood level of isotretinoin, so lower doses is required when combined. We assume to test the efficacy of isotretinoin in treatment of COVID-19 versus combined therapy with the standard treatment of COVID-19.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the superiority of Polyoxidonium®, lyophilizate for solution for injections and topical application, 6 mg over placebo in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This is a multicentre prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group phase IIb\IIIa clinical trial.

Interferon lambda is one of the main arms of the innate antiviral immune response and is critical for controlling respiratory viral infections in mice. Interferon lambda has a better side effect profile than other interferons because of the limited tissue distribution of its receptor. Peginterferon lambda is a long-acting form that has been studied extensively in human trials in viral hepatitis, confirming its safety. We propose to evaluate peginterferon-lambda in ambulatory and hospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.

COVID-19 is a global pandemic. So far encouraging results have been shown in different parts of the world with the utilisation of hydroxycloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin, and early studies into some of these, plus some with Vitamin C, have also proven beneficial. Vitamin D levels have also been shown to be an important indicator to the severity of symptoms in COVID-19 patients.

The COVID-19 pathology is frequently associated with diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. In the epidemic outbreak that exploded at the beginning of 2020 in the Lombardy Region, about two thirds of the patients who died from COVID-19 were affected by diabetes mellitus. COVID-19 occurs in 70% of cases with an inflammatory pathology of the airways that can be fed by a cytokine storm and result in severe respiratory failure (10% cases) and death (5%). The pathophysiological molecular mechanisms are currently not clearly defined. It is hypothesized that the transmembrane glycoprotein type II CD26, known for the enzyme activity Dipeptilpeptidase 4 of the extracellular domain, may play a main role in this condition. It is in fact considerably expressed at the level of parenchyma and pulmonary interstitium and carries out both systemic and paracrine enzymatic activity, modulating the function of various proinflammatory cytokines, growth factors and vasoactive peptides in the deep respiratory tract. Of particular interest is the fact that Dipeptilpeptidase 4 has been identified as a cellular receptor for S glycoprotein of MERS-COV. In the case of the SARS-COV 2 virus, the main receptor is the Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 protein, but a possible interaction with Dipeptilpeptidase 4 also cannot be excluded. The selective blockade of Dipeptilpeptidase 4 could therefore favorably modulate the pulmonary inflammatory response in the subject affected by COVID-19. This protein is also known for the enzymatic degradation function of the native glucagon-like peptide 1, one of the main regulators of insulin secretion. This is why it is a molecular target in the treatment of diabetes (drugs that selectively inhibit Dipeptilpeptidase 4 are marketed with an indication for the treatment of type 2 diabetes). It is believed that the use of a Dipeptilpeptidase 4 inhibitor in people with diabetes and hospitalized for Covid-19 may be safe and of particular interest for an evaluation of the effects on laboratory and instrumental indicators of inflammatory lung disease. Among the drugs that selectively block Dipeptilpeptidase 4, the one with the greatest affinity is Sitagliptin.

The present study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trial, with the approval of the ethics committee will be conducted on patients who have a positive test confirming COVID-19 in Loghman Hakim Medical Education Center in Tehran. Patients will be randomly assigned to the two arms of the study and after completing the course of treatment and collecting and analyzing the necessary information from each patient, the results of the study will be published both on this site and in the form of an article in a reputable international journal.