The research team claims that their work holds the promise of a new dimension for mild infections of COVID-19 as indomethacin is an inexpensive drug.
The study was conducted at Panimallar Medical College and Research Institute (PMCRI), led by Dr Rajan Ravichandran, an adjunct faculty in director nephrology and director nephrology at MIOT hospitals.
Indomethacin, with over two million prescriptions per year in the US alone, has been an established drug widely used to treat a variety of inflammatory diseases since the 1960s.
These Indian researchers are the first to show the efficacy of indomethacin through a randomized clinical trial though research by Italian and American scientists on a scientific basis.
“Knowing that one of the lethal effects of coronavirus infection is inflammation and cytokine storm, we decided to study the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, indomethacin. Scientific evidence strongly shows anti-viral action against the virus. Indomethacin is a safe and well understood drug. I have been using it in my profession for the last 30 years.”
Ravichandran said indomethacin works with all types.
“We had done two tests, one in the first wave and the other in the second wave. The results were the same. I hope ICMR will look into this study and incorporate indomethacin in the COVID-19 treatment protocol,” Ravichandran said.
Highlighting the findings of the research, IIT-Madras Professor R Krishna Kumar said: “Out of a total of 210 admitted patients, 107 were randomly allocated to a control group, which was treated with paracetamol and the standard of treatment regimen. it was done. Indomethacin was administered in 103 patients with standard treatment regimen. Patients were monitored daily for symptoms such as cough, cold, fever and muscle pain along with oxygen saturation.
None of the 103 patients receiving indomethacin developed oxygen desaturation. On the other hand, 20 of the 109 patients in the control group were unsaturated with oxygen saturation levels below 93%, he said.
“Patients in the indomethacin group recovered from all symptoms in three to four days. It took twice as long for the control group. Liver and kidney function tests showed no adverse reactions. Follow-up on the fourteenth day showed that almost half of the patients in the control group had multiple discomforts, while some indomethacin patients complained of fatigue only,” he said.