A gout drug shows promise for Covid-19, but skeptics worry about trusting science by press release

Original article from STAT by Matthew Herper. January 23, 2021

A press release from a Canadian research group raised hopes that treating people recently diagnosed with Covid-19 with colchicine, a drug commonly used to treat gout, could reduce the risk they will need to be hospitalized.But outside experts said the data provided were too limited to draw conclusions, leading to discussions of the risks of conducting science via press release, instead of in more detailed manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. All hoped that colchicine, a cheap and globally available generic medicine with manageable side effects, would prove to be beneficial.

“I’m not, ‘Oh, I don’t buy it’,” said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “It’s possible. There’s enough plausibility here. This could be a real finding, and if it is that would be great. But this press release doesn’t get us there.”

In the release, which was issued late Friday, the Montreal Heart Institute said that the rate of hospitalization or death was 21% lower among patients in its COLCORONA study who received colchicine compared to those who were randomly assigned to placebo. The study enrolled 4,488 patients.

But here’s a caveat: the press release said these results were not statistically significant, although the numbers are close. When the researchers excluded 329 patients who were diagnosed with Covid-19 based on family contacts or clinical symptoms, but who did not have positive PCR tests, there was a 25% reduction in hospitalization, and substantial reductions in the need for mechanical ventilation and deaths.

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