• Zhikang Ye, Ying Wang, Luis Enrique Colunga-Lozano, Manya Prasad, Wimonchat Tangamornsuksan, Bram Rochwerg, Liang Yao, Shahrzad Motaghi, Rachel J Couban, Maryam Ghadimi, Malgorzata M Bala, Huda Gomaa, Fang Fang, Yingqi Xiao, and Gordon H Guyatt.
• Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact (Ye, Tangamornsuksan, Rochwerg, Guyatt, Colunga-Lozano, Yao, Motaghi, Fang, Xiao), McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.; Department of Pharmacy (Wang), Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Department of Clinical Medicine (Colunga-Lozano), Health Science Center, Universidad de Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico; Department of Community Medicine (Prasad), North DMC Medical College, New Delhi, India; Faculty of Medicine and Public Health (Tangamornsuksan), HRH Princess Chulabhorn College of Medical Science, Chulabhorn Royal Academy, Bangkok, Thailand; Department of Medicine (Rochwerg); DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care (Couban), McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.; Department of Clinical Pharmacy (Ghadimi), Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine Jagiellonian (Bala), University Medical College, Krakow, Poland; Biostatistics Department (Gomaa), High institute of Public Health, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt; Drug Information Center (Gomaa), Tanta Chest Hospital, Ministry of Health and Population, Egypt; Clinical Medicine College of Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Rehabilitation (Fang), Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangdong, China; West China School of Nursing (Xiao), West China Hospital, Sichuan University, China.
• CMAJ. 2020 Jul 6; 192 (27): E756-E767.

BackgroundVery little direct evidence exists on use of corticosteroids in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Indirect evidence from related conditions must therefore inform inferences regarding benefits and harms. To support a guideline for managing COVID-19, we conducted systematic reviews examining the impact of corticosteroids in COVID-19 and related severe acute respiratory illnesses.MethodsWe searched standard international and Chinese biomedical literature databases and prepublication sources for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies comparing corticosteroids versus no corticosteroids in patients with COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). For acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), influenza and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), we updated the most recent rigorous systematic review. We conducted random-effects meta-analyses to pool relative risks and then used baseline risk in patients with COVID-19 to generate absolute effects.ResultsIn ARDS, according to 1 small cohort study in patients with COVID-19 and 7 RCTs in non-COVID-19 populations (risk ratio [RR] 0.72, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55 to 0.93, mean difference 17.3% fewer; low-quality evidence), corticosteroids may reduce mortality. In patients with severe COVID-19 but without ARDS, direct evidence from 2 observational studies provided very low-quality evidence of an increase in mortality with corticosteroids (hazard ratio [HR] 2.30, 95% CI 1.00 to 5.29, mean difference 11.9% more), as did observational data from influenza studies. Observational data from SARS and MERS studies provided very low-quality evidence of a small or no reduction in mortality. Randomized controlled trials in CAP suggest that corticosteroids may reduce mortality (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.98, 3.1% lower; very low-quality evidence), and may increase hyperglycemia.InterpretationCorticosteroids may reduce mortality for patients with COVID-19 and ARDS. For patients with severe COVID-19 but without ARDS, evidence regarding benefit from different bodies of evidence is inconsistent and of very low quality.© 2020 Joule Inc. or its licensors.

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