Researchers at Salt Lake City’s Intermountain Healthcare have launched a study in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a number of other scientific institutions worldwide to examine effective treatments for severe cases of COVID-19, known as acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS. The life-threatening condition causes severe inflammation in the lungs so they have a very difficult time maintaining adequate oxygen levels in a patient’s blood. ARDS is considered the most severe phase of a COVID-19 infection.
The study was announced in anticipation of continuing COVID-19 flareups as fewer than one-third of have been fully vaccinated against the disease. The randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial is part of the NIH Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public-private partnership to prioritize and accelerate development of the most promising COVID-19 treatments.
“While we work to get control through vaccination, we continue to need treatments,” said Dr. Samuel Brown, a critical care physician and researcher at Intermountain. He’s also the principal investigator of the Phase 3 trial, titled “ACTIV-3 Critical Care.”
During the pandemic, doctors have treated COVID-19 patients using the drugs Zyesami and Veklury (remdesivir). Now, the study will research the efficacy and safety of these drugs in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with ARDS.
“What’s complex is that COVID itself, for any one individual, the risk is relatively low unless they have comorbidities. Now if you infect enough people, even low risk will lead to some substantial death and disability,” Brown said. “But on average, the typical person infected with COVID has a nasty cold and gets better. If it were not so transmissible, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But, unfortunately, it’s very transmissible, so you get huge numbers infected and then you end up with large numbers that get very, very sick.”
Doctors have had success treating patients who suffer from less-severe cases of COVID-19 with these medications but finding therapeutics for very ill patients has been difficult, Brown said. There isn’t research to show that those with COVID-19 who have developed ARDS benefit from being treated with remdesivir — the study is hoping to answer some of these questions.
“So far, we’ve been struggling to find therapies that will work for the sickest of the sick, the people who are on life support treatments because their lungs are failing,” Brown said. “ARDS — it’s devastating. It can kill 20 percent to 40 percent of the people afflicted by it, and the majority of survivors may take six months, 12 months, five years to recover from it; and some people, unfortunately, never do get back to their prior state of health.”
Researchers said they are trying to move rapidly with the study to provide answers quickly to the public and are hoping to have results in as few as four to five months, according to Brown.
