Pulmonary radiological change of COVID-19 patients with 99m Tc-MDP treatment

  1. Xiaolin Yuan
  2. Wanrong Yi
  3. Baoyi Liu
  4. Simiao Tian
  5. Fang Cao
  6. Ruoyu Wang
  7. Baiwen Qi
  8. Faqiang Lu
  9. Meiyun Fang
  10. Fuyang Pei
  11. Ming Chen
  12. Lichuan Zhang
  13. Yong Zhang
  14. Xiuzhi Zhang
  15. Zhenyu Pan
  16. Dewei Zhao
  17. Aixi Yu

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Abstract

Background

As increasing cases of COVID-19 around world, urgent need for effective COVID-19-specific therapeutic drugs is necessary; therefore, we conducted a pilot randomized-controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of 99m Tc-MDP for COVID-19 therapeutic treatment.

Methods

A total of 21 mild patients with COVID-19 were enrolled in this pilot RCT from February 2020 through March 2020, and then were assigned, in a 1:1 ratio, into control (11 patients) and 99m Tc-MDP group (10 patients). Patients in the control group received routine treatment and patients assigned to the 99m Tc-MDP group received a combination of routine treatment and an administration of 99m Tc-MDP injection of 5ml/day. Both of the patients in the control and 99m Tc-MDP groups were treated for 7 days with the primary end point of CT-based radiological pulmonary changes during 7-day follow-up.

Findings

From baseline to the day 7, 8 (80%) of 10 mild patients in the 99m Tc-MDP group had a significant radiological improvement in lung and a decline in inflammatory infiltration, whereas only 1 (9.1%) of 11 patients in the control group had a radiological improvement in lung. None of the patients in the 99m Tc-MDP group had disease progression from mild to severe, as well as an inflammatory cytokine storm, and 2 mild patients (18.2%) in the control group developed severe. During days 7 through 14, the number of patients with radiological improvement in the 99m Tc-MDP group remained consistent, and only 1 additional case (22%) in the control group were reported.

Conclusion

In this randomized pilot study, 99m Tc-MDP had an effective inhibitory effect on the inflammatory disease progression for the therapy of COVID-19, and it can accelerate the absorption of pulmonary inflammation in a short period of time during the process of treatment.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.07.20054767: (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: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.07.20054767v1 on medRxiv