An antidepressant commonly used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may significantly reduce the risk of clinical deterioration in COVID-19 patients, according to new research published in Scientific Reports. The authors defined clinical deterioration as needing hospitalization after testing positive for COVID. About 7 percent of patients who took fluvoxamine needed hospitalization after testing positive for COVID-19, whereas about 19 percent of those who did not take fluvoxamine required hospitalization, the authors found.
Eight of the studies analyzed were placebo-controlled and used proper blinding methods. The STOP COVID trial was among the first to explore repurposing fluvoxamine for COVID-19. In this trial, 80 patients received 300 milligrams of fluvoxamine daily.
None experienced clinical worsening of their symptoms, while six out of 72 patients in the placebo group did. Another early trial, the TOGETHER trial, was significantly larger than the STOP COVID trial and involved 1,497 participants—741 of whom received 200 milligrams of fluvoxamine daily and 756 of whom received a placebo. The study found that 11 percent of patients in the fluvoxamine group versus 16 percent of patients in the placebo group needed observation for COVID-19 in an emergency setting for more than six hours or were transferred to a tertiary hospital.
Moreover, there were 17 deaths in the fluvoxamine group and 25 deaths in the placebo group. Open-label studies are not blinded, meaning p.
