A Trial of Lopinavir-Ritonavir in Adults Hospitalized with Severe Covid-19
Bin Cao 1, Yeming Wang 1, Danning Wen 1, Wen Liu 1, Jingli Wang 1, Guohui Fan 1, Lianguo Ruan 1, Bin Song 1, Yanping Cai 1, Ming Wei 1, Xingwang Li 1, Jiaan Xia 1, Nanshan Chen 1, Jie Xiang 1, Ting Yu 1, Tao Bai 1, Xuelei Xie 1, Li Zhang 1, Caihong Li 1, Ye Yuan 1, Hua Chen 1, Huadong Li 1, Hanping Huang 1, Shengjing Tu 1, Fengyun Gong 1, Ying Liu 1, Yuan Wei 1, Chongya Dong 1, Fei Zhou 1, Xiaoying Gu 1, Jiuyang Xu 1, Zhibo Liu 1, Yi Zhang 1, Hui Li 1, Lianhan Shang 1, Ke Wang 1, Kunxia Li 1, Xia Zhou 1, Xuan Dong 1, Zhaohui Qu 1, Sixia Lu 1, Xujuan Hu 1, Shunan Ruan 1, Shanshan Luo 1, Jing Wu 1, Lu Peng 1, Fang Cheng 1, Lihong Pan 1, Jun Zou 1, Chunmin Jia 1, Juan Wang 1, Xia Liu 1, Shuzhen Wang 1, Xudong Wu 1, Qin Ge 1, Jing He 1, Haiyan Zhan 1, Fang Qiu 1, Li Guo 1, Chaolin Huang 1, Thomas Jaki 1, Frederick G Hayden 1, Peter W Horby 1, Dingyu Zhang 1, Chen Wang 1
Background: No therapeutics have yet been proven effective for the treatment of severe illness caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Methods: We conducted a randomized, controlled, open-label trial involving hospitalized adult patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, which causes the respiratory illness Covid-19, and an oxygen saturation (Sao2) of 94% or less while they were breathing ambient air or a ratio of the partial pressure of oxygen (Pao2) to the fraction of inspired oxygen (Fio2) of less than 300 mm Hg. Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive either lopinavir-ritonavir (400 mg and 100 mg, respectively) twice a day for 14 days, in addition to standard care, or standard care alone. The primary end point was the time to clinical improvement, defined as the time from randomization to either an improvement of two points on a seven-category ordinal scale or discharge from the hospital, whichever came first.
Results: A total of 199 patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection underwent randomization; 99 were assigned to the lopinavir-ritonavir group, and 100 to the standard-care group. Treatment with lopinavir-ritonavir was not associated with a difference from standard care in the time to clinical improvement (hazard ratio for clinical improvement, 1.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95 to 1.80). Mortality at 28 days was similar in the lopinavir-ritonavir group and the standard-care group (19.2% vs. 25.0%; difference, -5.8 percentage points; 95% CI, -17.3 to 5.7). The percentages of patients with detectable viral RNA at various time points were similar. In a modified intention-to-treat analysis, lopinavir-ritonavir led to a median time to clinical improvement that was shorter by 1 day than that observed with standard care (hazard ratio, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.91). Gastrointestinal adverse events were more common in the lopinavir-ritonavir group, but serious adverse events were more common in the standard-care group. Lopinavir-ritonavir treatment was stopped early in 13 patients (13.8%) because of adverse events.
Conclusions: In hospitalized adult patients with severe Covid-19, no benefit was observed with lopinavir-ritonavir treatment beyond standard care. Future trials in patients with severe illness may help to confirm or exclude the possibility of a treatment benefit. (Funded by Major Projects of National Science and Technology on New Drug Creation and Development and others; Chinese Clinical Trial Register number, ChiCTR2000029308.).