Efficacy and safety of Lianhuaqingwen capsules in high-risk common type COVID-19 pneumonia: A multicenter retrospective study

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the clinical safety and efficacy of Lianhuaqingwen (LHQW) capsules in patients with high-risk common type COVID-19 pneumonia. Methods: A retrospective multicenter study on 383 high-risk common type COVID-19 pneumonia cases was conducted. Patients were categorized as the standard treatment (SDT) group (n=168) and the LHQW+SDT group (n=215). The primary endpoint was the rate of symptom (fever, fatigue, coughing) recovery and the secondary endpoints included the time to symptom recovery, the proportion of patients with improvement in chest CT images, the proportion of patients with clinical cure, the timing and rate of negative conversion of SARS-CoV-2 RNA assay. Results: The recovery rate was significantly higher in the LHQW+SDT group as compared with the SDT group (89.7% vs. 72.0%, P<0.01). The combined use of LHQW+SDT also showed shorter time for symptom recovery, as well as shorter time for individual symptom of fever, fatigue and coughing recovery than use of SDT alone. A higher proportion of patients in the LHQW+SDT group with improvements in chest CT images and clinical cure (77.7% vs. 57.1%, P<0.01) but the proportion of patients deteriorating to severe cases (1% vs. 25%, P<0.01) in this group was significant lower than those in the SDT group. No significant difference in negative conversion rate of viral assay results was observed (76.8% vs. 75.0%, P>0.05). No serious adverse events were reported. Conclusions: LHQW capsules could be recommended to ameliorate clinical symptoms and reduce the rate of deteriorating to severe cases for high-risk common type COVID-19 pneumonia.