Tim Felton has key role in NEJM COVID paper

by | Mar 10, 2021 | Uncategorised | 0 comments

MACC researcher Dr Tim Felton, Honorary Consultant in Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine at Wythenshawe Hospital, is one of the key authors of the recently published RECOVERY trial paper which identified the steroid dexamethasone as a critical weapon in the fight against COVID-19 in hospitalised patients.

Tim was part of a large team running this controlled, open-label trial comparing a range of possible treatments in patients who were hospitalised with Covid-19. The collaborators randomly assigned patients to receive oral or intravenous dexamethasone (at a dose of 6 mg once daily) for up to 10 days or to receive usual care alone. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality.

A total of 2104 patients were assigned to receive dexamethasone and 4321 to receive usual care. Overall, 482 patients (22.9%) in the dexamethasone group and 1110 patients (25.7%) in the usual care group died within 28 days after randomisation. The team concluded that in patients hospitalised with Covid-19, the use of dexamethasone resulted in lower 28-day mortality among those who were receiving either invasive mechanical ventilation or oxygen alone at randomisation, but not among those receiving no respiratory support.

You can read the full paper here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2021436

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