{"id":608505,"date":"2024-06-07T15:06:40","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T19:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/extended-course-of-paxlovid-adds-no-benefit-for-those-with-long-covid-drugs-com-mednews\/"},"modified":"2024-06-08T00:35:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T04:35:22","slug":"extended-course-of-paxlovid-adds-no-benefit-for-those-with-long-covid-drugs-com-mednews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/extended-course-of-paxlovid-adds-no-benefit-for-those-with-long-covid-drugs-com-mednews\/","title":{"rendered":"Extended Course of Paxlovid Adds No Benefit for Those With Long COVID – Drugs.com MedNews","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

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Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm<\/a>. Last updated on June 7, 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter<\/p>\n

FRIDAY, June 7, 2024 — An extended course of the antiviral drug Paxlovid<\/a> won\u2019t ease a person\u2019s Long COVID symptoms, a new study finds.<\/p>\n

People who took Paxlovid for 15 days — three times as long as it\u2019s prescribed for an initial COVID<\/a> infection — had no better improvement in their Long COVID than people taking a placebo, researchers reported June 7 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile there are now improved therapies and treatment practices for acute COVID, there\u2019s nothing FDA-approved for Long COVID,\u201d said senior researcher Dr. Upinder Singh<\/a>, chief of infectious disease and geographic medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. \u201cPeople continue to suffer and the numbers keep piling up.\u201d<\/p>\n

An estimated 10% to 20% of COVID patients — tens of millions in the United States alone — develop Long COVID, a collection of symptoms that tend to crop up three months or more after a person\u2019s initial infection.<\/p>\n

One theory has held that Long COVID might occur due to leftover virus or viral debris that remains in a person\u2019s deep tissues even after they\u2019ve cleared the infection.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome studies suggest that viral particles and molecular debris could be responsible for some Long-COVID sufferers\u2019 ongoing symptoms,\u201d Singh said in a Stanford news release. \u201cWe figured if that\u2019s the case, maybe treating them with Paxlovid could relieve some of these symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between November 2022 and September 2023, the researchers recruited 155 Long COVID patients who\u2019d been infected with COVID more than 16 months earlier. Each participant reported at least two out of six common Long COVID symptoms — fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, body aches and heart or GI symptoms.<\/p>\n

Half the patients were randomly assigned to a 15-day course of Paxlovid, and the rest a placebo. People take five days of the antiviral to fight off an acute COVID infection.<\/p>\n

At 10 weeks, there was no statistically significant difference in symptoms between the two groups, researchers report.<\/p>\n

The trial did have one positive result, however — it showed that people can safely take a long course of Paxlovid.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne reasonable implication of our results is that Paxlovid can be given safely for a longer period of time,\u201d Singh said, \u201cfor example, in instances where a newly infected patient is immunocompromised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singh said these results, while discouraging, don\u2019t completely rule out the potential for Paxlovid to be helpful in treating Long COVID. For example, future tests might try the drug on people who\u2019ve more recently developed Long COVID.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we have tested patients with symptoms present after only seven or eight months instead of 16 or 17?\u201d Singh said. \u201cShould we have treated them for a longer time? Were we even testing the right patients? Maybe only some symptoms will be responsive to antiviral treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team will continue to analyze the results from this trial, to see whether particular people were helped more than others.<\/p>\n

The trial was funded by Pfizer Inc., the maker of Paxlovid.<\/p>\n

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Sources<\/h2>\n