A drug commonly used to treat cystic fibrosis improved outcomes for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and could be used to treat other respiratory infections, according to clinical trial results from researchers at UCL, UCLH and the Francis Crick Institute. The study, published in eLife , found that the drug dornase alfa reduced hyper-inflammation in COVID-19 pneumonia patients, which occurs when the body's immune system reacts too strongly and can lead to tissue damage and death. The next step will be to conduct larger clinical trials, with the ultimate goal of approving dornase alfa for wider use.
As well as COVID-19, dornase alfa has the potential to treat other respiratory infections such as those caused by influenza or bacterial pneumonia, and even other lung diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections that result in death has fallen from a high of almost 1,400 deaths on 19 January 2021 to 143 deaths on 21 June 2024. This is partly down to increased immunity from prior infection or vaccination, as well as improved treatments for those who become seriously ill such as dexamethasone, a steroid that helps to tackle the hyper-inflammation that was a key factor in many COVID-19 deaths.
But this treatment isn't suitable for some patients and is not always successful in severe cases. In this study, researchers from UCL, UCLH and the Francis Crick Institute set out to assess whether dornase alfa.
