A new Canadian study, COLCORONA, conducted by the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI), makes a major breakthrough in the treatment of COVID-19.
The results of the COLCORONA study (4488 patients diagnosed positively with COVID-19 by a nasopharyngeal PCR test) showed that colchicine reduced the risk of death or hospitalization by 21% in patients infected with COVID-19 compared to placebo. In the group of patients treated with colchicine, hospitalizations were reduced by 25%, the need for mechanical ventilation decreased by 50% and deaths decreased by 44%.
Colchicine is a widely used anti-inflammatory drug, and also very cheap. The dose used in this study was 0.5mg of colchicine twice a day for 3 days, then 0.5mg of colchicine once a day for 27 days. Treatment was initiated as soon as the diagnosis of COVID-19 infection was made, thus reducing the risk of developing a severe form of the disease and, consequently, reducing the number of hospitalizations. Prescribing patients’ colchicine could help alleviate hospital congestion and reduce healthcare costs.
