Efficacy of Early Combination Therapy With Lianhuaqingwen and Arbidol in Moderate and Severe COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Jie Fang; Hui Li; Wei Du; Ping Yu; Ying-Yun Guan; Shi-Yu Ma; Dong Liu; Wei Chen; Guo-Chao Shi; Xiao-Lan Bian

doi:10.3389/fphar.2020.560209

Efficacy of Early Combination Therapy With Lianhuaqingwen and Arbidol in Moderate and Severe COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Front Pharmacol. 2020 Sep 18:11:560209. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2020.560209. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jie Fang¹, Hui Li¹, Wei Du^{2

3}, Ping Yu¹, Ying-Yun Guan¹, Shi-Yu Ma¹, Dong Liu^{2

3}, Wei Chen^{2

3}, Guo-Chao Shi^{2

3}, Xiao-Lan Bian¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.
² Department of Respiration and Critical Care Disease, Ruijin Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.
³ School of Medicine, Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Objective: Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Wuhan City, China, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic. However, no special therapeutic drugs have been identified for COVID-19. The aim of this study was to search for drugs to effectively treat COVID-19.

Materials and methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study with a total of 162 adult inpatients (≥18 years old) from Ruijin Hospital (Shanghai, China) and Tongji Hospital (Wuhan, China) between January 27, 2020, and March 10, 2020. The enrolled COVID-19 patients were first divided into the Lianhuaqingwen (LHQW) monotherapy group and the LHQW + Arbidol combination therapy group. Then, these two groups were further classified into moderate and severe groups according to the clinical classification of COVID-19.

Results: The early combined usage of LHQW and Arbidol can significantly accelerate the recovery of patients with moderate COVID-19 by reducing the time to conversion to nucleic acid negativity, the time to chest CT improvement, and the length of hospital stay. However, no benefit was observed in severe COVID-19 patients treated with the combination of LHQW + Arbidol. In this study, both Arbidol and LHQW were well tolerated without serious drug-associated adverse events.

Conclusion: The early combined usage of LHQW and Arbidol may accelerate recovery and improve the prognosis of patients with moderate COVID-19.

Keywords: Arbidol; COVID-19; Lianhuaqingwen; SARS-CoV-2; combination therapy.