Ruiz-Antorán, BelénSancho-Lopez, A.Torres, F.Moreno-Torres, Vde Pablo-Lopez, I.Garcia-Lopez, P.Fernandez-Cruz, A.Cordero Matia, María Elisa2022-10-192022-10-192021Ruiz-Antorán, B., Sancho-Lopez, A., Torres, F., Moreno-Torres, V., de Pablo-Lopez, I., Garcia-Lopez, P.,...,Cordero Matia, M.E. (2021). Combination of Tocilizumab and Steroids to Improve Mortality in Patients with Severe COVID-19 Infection: A Spanish, Multicenter, Cohort Study. Infectius diseases and therapy, 10 (1), 347-362. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40121-020-00373-8.2193-82292193-6382 (electrónico)https://hdl.handle.net/11441/138138Background: We aimed to determine the impact of tocilizumab use on severe COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 19) pneumonia mortality. Methods: We performed a multicentre retrospective cohort study in 18 tertiary hospitals in Spain from March to April 2020. Consecutive patients admitted with severe COVID-19 treated with tocilizumab were compared to patients not treated with tocilizumab, adjusting by inverse probability of the treatment weights (IPTW). Tocilizumab’s effect in patients receiving steroids during the 48 h following inclusion was analysed. Results: During the study period, 506 patients with severe COVID-19 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Among them, 268 were treated with tocilizumab and 238 patients were not. Median time to tocilizumab treatment from onset of symptoms was 11 days [interquartile range (IQR) 8–14]. Global mortality was 23.7%. Mortality was lower in patients treated with tocilizumab than in controls: 16.8% versus 31.5%, hazard ratio (HR) 0.514 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.355–0.744], p\0.001; weighted HR 0.741 (95% CI 0.619–0.887), p = 0.001. Tocilizumab treatment reduced mortality by 14.7% relative to no tocilizumab treatment [relative risk reduction (RRR) 46.7%]. We calculated a number necessary to treat of 7. Among patients treated with steroids, mortality was lower in those treated with tocilizumab than in those treated with steroids alone [10.9% versus 40.2%, HR 0.511 (95% CI 0.352–0.741), p = 0.036; weighted HR 0.6 (95% CI 0.449–0.804), p\0.001] (interaction p = 0.094). Conclusions: These results show that survival of patients with severe COVID-19 is higher in those treated with tocilizumab than in those not treated and that tocilizumab’s effect adds to that of steroids administered to non-intubated patients with COVID-19 during the first 48 h of presenting with respiratory failure despite oxygen therapy. Randomised controlled studies are needed to confirm these results. Trial registration: European Union electronic Register of Post-Authorization Studies (EU PAS Register) identifier, EUPAS34415application/pdf16 p.engAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/COVID-19MortalitySARS-CoV-2SteroidsTocilizumabinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://doi.org/10.1007/s40121-020-00373-8