Re:Hydroxychloroquine Probably Isn’t the Answer
by Natsu on Sunday April 05, 2020 @02:47PM
(#22787522)
To me, the headline reads like it's saying "this probably won't work" rather than "we don't yet have enough evidence to say that this works." If I had to headline this article, I probably would have written something like "Hydroxychloroquine data still inconclusive, don't get your hopes up yet" to better convey the meaning.
From reading it, what the article actually supports is that we have seen two trials that are inconclusive. This is the meat of it in my view -
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A French study of HCQ suggested that it had was effective in decreasing the viral load from nasal secretions. When azithromycin was added the magnitude of the effect was larger.
[...]
And a Chinese study of 30 patients doesn't prove that HCQ worked. Or that it doesn't. But the two groups, control and treated, showed no difference in the amount of virus in the throat on day seven, the length of time for the fever to go away. There was an apparent difference in the progression of the infection (determined by x-ray), in the two groups but this means little since 5/15 treated patients got worse vs. 7/15 in the control group. This effect could easily be by chance and nothing to do to the drug. Furthermore, this trial did not include azithromycin, so it cannot be compared to the French trial.
From reading it, what the article actually supports is that we have seen two trials that are inconclusive. This is the meat of it in my view -
==
A French study of HCQ suggested that it had was effective in decreasing the viral load from nasal secretions. When azithromycin was added the magnitude of the effect was larger.
[...]
And a Chinese study of 30 patients doesn't prove that HCQ worked. Or that it doesn't. But the two groups, control and treated, showed no difference in the amount of virus in the throat on day seven, the length of time for the fever to go away. There was an apparent difference in the progression of the infection (determined by x-ray), in the two groups but this means little since 5/15 treated patients got worse vs. 7/15 in the control group. This effect could easily be by chance and nothing to do to the drug. Furthermore, this trial did not include azithromycin, so it cannot be compared to the French trial.