Don't close the book on tocilizumab for the treatment of severe COVID-19 pneumonia - the jury is still out. The Kuwait experience

Abstract

Purpose: This cross-sectional observational study aims to report preliminary data from the first experience with tocilizumab administered to patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in three of the largest public hospitals in Kuwait City.

Patients and Methods: We conducted a chart review of 127 patients classified as having severe COVID-19 pneumonia with associated features of cytokine release storm treated with tocilizumab.

Results: 90 of 127 patients (71%) survived. Mortality was highest in the elderly with multiple medical conditions.

Conclusion: Despite the small sample size and retrospective nature of the work, our findings suggest tocilizumab administration in patients presenting with severe COVID pneumonia with associated cytokine release storm conferred mortality benefit.

Rights

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Cite as

Downloadable citations

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254379

Repository URI

https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/77450/