A Review of Dosages of Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 in registered Clinical Trials during First Quarter of 2020

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Abstract

Background

The novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been causing a massive global public health havoc. Use of quinolones for treatment of COVID-19 was a matter of huge discussion in scientific community. Falsified data about efficacy of the drug against COVID-19 disseminated. This review was designed to study the dosages of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine planned to be administered in clinical trials registered up to March 2020.

Summary

Inclusion of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment in Chinese national treatment guideline in the early days of the pandemic prompted numerous clinical trials in many countries to authenticate the efficacy of the drugs. Trials were designed to include chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine singly or in combination with other drugs. Almost all of the trials planned oral administration except few which used aerosol inhalation. In the later half of 2020, systematic reviews and results of those clinical trials point out the inefficacies and inadvertent adverse events due to the use of these quinolone drugs for COVID-19.

Conclusion

This study reviews the various dosages of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine utilized in published and under-study clinical trials as assessed during the end of March 2020. Specifically, clinical trials registered in Chinese and US trial registries were examined.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.22.20040964: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04323527CompletedChloroquine Diphosphate for the Treatment of Severe Acute Re…
    NCT04261517CompletedEfficacy and Safety of Hydroxychloroquine for Treatment of C…
    NCT04303507RecruitingChloroquine/ Hydroxychloroquine Prevention of Coronavirus Di…
    NCT04326725Active, not recruitingProflaxis Using Hydroxychloroquine Plus Vitamins-Zinc During…


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.