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The green light to enter the colchicine, a known and inexpensive cardiology drug, in the protocol of oral treatments in patients with covid-19 administered by Committee of Experts of the Ministry of Health, after the results of a large Canadian study in which Greece also participated.
The Canadian study showed that colchicine in patients with covid-19 “Reduction in mortality by 44%, hospitalization by 25% and the need for intubation by 50%”, as stated by the National Coordinator of the study in Greece, professor of cardiology, Spyros Defteraios.
What the Committee of Experts decided
The committee decided, as stated by the president of the Hellenic Infection Society and a committee member Father Gargalianos, to include the drug colchicine for outpatient use.
However, as he has pointed out, “the administration will be done with a medical prescription in certain categories of patients with a positive coronavirus molecular test.”
These are all patients more than 60 years who have a positive molecular test regardless of whether or not they have underlying diseases. Also for patients of 18 to 60 years with at least one underlying illness or fever 38 for at least 48 hours.
Underlying diseases include diabetes, obesity, uncontrolled hypertension, asthma, COPD, heart failure, and coronary heart disease.
The administration of colchicine in pill form will be done when the treating physician decides and it is estimated that it will be administered in the first twenty-four hours after the positive molecular test.
Following the announcement of the positive results of the large, multicenter, randomized Colcorona study completed in Canada in approximately 5,000 COVID-19 patients, which “showed a significant benefit of the administration of colchicine as a drug administered when someone has coronavirus,” says P. Gargalianos.
The issue was urgently raised before the Committee of Experts of the Ministry of Health in order to decide if this cheap treatment could be included in the treatment protocol for patients with covid-19 and in our country, which finally happened.
The decision will be officially published tomorrow at noon by EODY.
It is worth noting that in the Canadian study COLCORONA Greece also participated with the National Coordinator Professor Spyros Defteraios and his members Sotiris Tsiodras, Panagiotis Gargalianos, D. Vrachatis and S. Giotakis, and activated centers in Athens, Kozani (Dr. Efthalia Randou) and Alexandropoulos Panalopoulos (Alexandroupolis). (Dr. Christoforos). Olympios) and Patras Prof. Markos Marangos.
The Canadian study follows the first published randomized study carried out, GRECCO-19, involving 16 centers in Greece and scientific contributions from Humanitas University Hospital for Clinical Research (Italy), La Fe University and Polytechnic Hospital (Spain), Mount Sinai (EE. .UU.), Yale (United States)
How did the idea of administering and studying colchicine come about?
As the researchers note, when the first data on COVID-19 became available, the negative role of the body’s over-inflammatory response to the invader (the virus now called SARS-CoV-2) was quickly understood and on a multi-system level. .that is, it affects many organs, including the myocardium.
Their many years of experience with colchicine, its safety, but also its therapeutic anti-inflammatory properties in pericarditis, as they report, led them to think about using it to protect the body from the negative inflammatory side effects created by COVID-19.
The original idea for the GRECCO-19 study was Greek, but the full development of the protocol, analysis, and publication of results was done in collaboration with scientists from Greece, Italy, Spain, and the United States, including scientists from the Greek diaspora.
Source: ΑΠΕ – ΜΠΕ
