Improved Clinical Outcome with Cyclosporine in Patients with Moderate to Severe COVID-19 Infection

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the potential benefits of adding cyclosporine to the presently recommended conventional treatment for COVID-19 disease. Methodology: A retrospective cross-sectional research was carried out on COVID-19 patients with moderate-to-severe severity who were admitted to Lahore General Hospital's ICU (intensive care unit) or HDU (high dependency care unit from 2020 to 2021. Patients aged 18 to 70 with moderate to severe illness were included, while those with specific conditions were excluded. Data on symptoms, oxygen saturation levels, and medication usage were collected and analyzed using statistical tests. The assessment of outcome decreased dependence on oxygen in ICU/HDU was assessed through a combination of different drugs (treatment), especially the inclusion of Cyclosporine, which was done with Chi-square and Binomial tests. Results: In the study 46% are male and 54%are females. 71% of patients suffer fever while 69% observed shortness of breath out of which 44% had cough. On presentation 30.8% were mild cases (out of which27% converted to moderate on second day), 17.3% fall in moderate cases while 51.9% are severe COVID cases while on treatment day 7 results shows 30.6% patients are oxygen free, 10% cases are moderate cases while 19% were severe cases.53.8% remain alive while deaths are 46.2% which is a good number in ICU/HDU cases. Conclusion: Cyclosporine use should be considered in SARS-CoV-2 moderate and severe disease because it not only improves the disease severity, reduces oxygen demand and improves mortality.