• Timothée Klopfenstein, Souheil Zayet, Anne Lohse, Phillippe Selles, Hajer Zahra, N'dri Juliette Kadiane-Oussou, Lynda Toko, Pierre-Yves Royer, Jean-Charles Balblanc, Vincent Gendrin, Thierry Conrozier, and HNF Hospital Tocilizumab multidisciplinary team.
• Infectious Disease Department, Nord Franche-Comté Hospital, 90400 Trévenans, France. Electronic address: timothee.klopfenstein@hnfc.fr.
• Int. J. Infect. Dis. 2020 Oct 1; 99: 491-495.

IntroductionNo therapy has proven to be effective yet to reduce mortality and/or invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) requirement in COVID-19. Tocilizumab (TCZ) in patients with severe COVID-19 could be an effective treatment.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective case-control study in the Nord Franche-Comté Hospital, France. We compared the outcome of patients treated with TCZ and patients without TCZ considering a combined primary endpoint: mortality and/or IMV requirement.ResultsThirty patients were treated with TCZ and 176 patients were treated without TCZ. TCZ was used in patients in critical condition (oxygen therapy flow at TCZ onset was 10.5 L/min and 14/30 patients had ≥ 50% lung involvement on CT scan) as a rescue treatment (8/30 patients who died were not admitted in USC in regard to their comorbidities). However, mortality and/or IMV requirement were lower in patients with TCZ than in patients without TCZ (27% vs 52%, p = 0.009).ConclusionDespite the small sample size in the TCZ group, this result suggests that TCZ reduces mortality and/or IMV requirement in patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. This notion needs to be confirmed and spread in the medical community.Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

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