NEW: Massive study of 96,000 COVID-19 patients showed no benefit and increased mortality from hydroxychloroquine treatment

New research published in The Lancet on Friday found that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine has ‘no benefit’ for coronavirus patients, and could even increase the risk of heart arrhythmias and mortality.

“This is the first large scale study to find statistically robust evidence that treatment with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine does not benefit patients with COVID-19,” said lead author of the study and Executive Director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center in Boston Mandeep R. Mehra. “Instead, our findings suggest it may be associated with an increased risk of serious heart problems and increased risk of death.”

Treatment with hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, or either drug in combination with azithromycin was also associated with higher odds of death, even after accounting for age, race, body mass index, and preexisting conditions.

The Lancet article is the largest study to date on the hyped drugs, analyzing data from nearly 15,000 COVID-19 patients who received hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, or a combination of either drug with a macrolide antibiotic such as azithromycin, and 81,000 COVID-19 patients who did not receive any of those treatments. The data came from 671 hospitals across 6 continents.

The Lancet results support previous findings from a widely disseminated Brazilian study that found an increased risk of heart arrhythmias in COVID-19 patients receiving high doses of the drug. The study was discontinued shortly after, as subjecting patients to increased risk of death in the trial was deemed unethical by study coordinators.

China, Spain, Brazil, and the United States have also issued recommendations for use of hydroxychloroquine in limited populations, largely restricting them to use in clinical trial settings in light of the new reports of serious cardiac side effects.

But the authors of The Lancet study still warn that the overall likelihood that these drugs improve clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients is quite low, and underline that the medicines should not be recommended by countries for widespread treatment of COVID-19.

“Several countries have advocated use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, either alone or in combination, as potential treatments for COVID-19. Justification for repurposing these medicines in this way is based on a small number of anecdotal experiences that suggest they may have beneficial effects for people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus,” said Director of the Heart Center at University Hospital Zurich Frank Ruschitzka, who also co-authored The Lancet study.

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