The Effectiveness Asthma Steroid Ciclesonide has as Outpatient Therapy for Patients Experiencing COVID Symptoms

Non-hospitalized symptomatic COVID-19 patients who were treated with ciclesonide to alleviate early symptoms did not see any difference in results compared to patients who were treated with a placebo of the drug.

In a double-blind randomized clinical trial, 400 patients from 10 different centers in the United States were screened in the trial from June 11, 2020 to November 3, 2020, according to a JAMA Internal Medicine study.

Patients who showed COVID-related symptoms (cough, dyspnea, chills, feeling feverish, re- peated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, and new loss of taste or smell) were tested to see if the inhaled asthma steroid found in common brands like as Zetonna and Alvesco would alleviate symptoms as soon as 30 days.

The secondary outcome of the clinical trial was to test whether ciclesonide plus the standard supportive care reduced the incidence of emergency department visits or hospital admissions for reasons related to COVID-19 compared with the placebo plus standard supportive care.

Out of the patients who were enrolled and randomized (197 in the ciclesonide arm and 203 in the placebo arm), the median time to alleviation of all COVID-19–related symptoms was 19 days in the ciclesonide arm and 19 days in the placebo arm.

There was no difference in resolution of all symptoms by day 30, but participants who were treated with ciclesonide had fewer subsequent emergency department visits or hospital admissions for reasons related to COVID-19. No participants died during the study.

The results of the study suggest future studies of inhaled steroids are needed to explore the efficacy in patients with a high risk for disease progression and in reducing the incidence of long-term COVID-19 symptoms.