Coronavirus: Medical chiefs call for patients to be enrolled in clinical trials
Written by News on 03/04/2020
The UK’s top medical experts have urged clinicians to enrol coronavirus patients in clinical trials.
In an open letter, the country’s chief medical officers and NHS England medical director Professor Stephen Powis called for patients to be involved in trials taking place across primary care, hospitals and intensive care units.
“As yet, there are no proven treatments for COVID-19,” they said. “We need to gather reliable evidence through clinical trials.
“Using international evidence and UK expertise the most promising potential treatments, at this stage, have been identified and the UK is running national clinical trials to gather evidence across the whole disease spectrum.”
The three main national trials are: Principle (for higher risk patients in primary care), Recovery (for those in hospital), and REMAP-CAP (for critically ill patients).
Several other studies, including one which monitors immunosuppressed children and young people, are also being encouraged.
The chief medical officers, including Professor Chris Whitty, said evidence from the trials “will be used to inform treatment decisions and benefit patients in the immediate future”.
“The faster that patients are recruited, the sooner we will get reliable results,” they urged.
The letter said using treatments without taking part in a trial would be a “wasted opportunity”.
The Recovery trial is being run by the University of Oxford and will test a number of treatment options for those in hospital, including a drug used to treat HIV and hydroxychloroquine, which is related to an anti-malarial drug.
More than 50 sites across the world are taking part in the REMAP-CAP trial, which helps patients who develop community-acquired pneumonia (CAP).
It is a syndrome in which individuals who have not been hospitalised recently develop an acute infection of the lungs, often caused by viral infections.
New potential treatments specific to COVID-19 will be tested at these sites.
The Principle trial is open to people aged 50 to 64 who have COVID-19 symptoms and have an underlying condition such as heart disease, asthma or cancer.
It is also open to those aged 65 or over, with or without other illnesses.
The first drug that will be trialled is hydroxychloroquine, but other potential treatments will be used as they are identified.
It came as it was announced another 684 people had died in the UK after contracting coronavirus – bringing the total number of deaths to 3,605.
(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Medical chiefs call for patients to be enrolled in clinical trials
