Pharmacological interventions for COVID-19: Protocol for a Rapid Living Systematic Review with network meta-analysis

  1. Ana Carolina Pereira Nunes Pinto
  2. Aline Pereira da Rocha
  3. Keilla Martins Milby
  4. César Ramos Rocha-Filho
  5. Felipe Sebastião de Assis Reis
  6. Nelson Carvas Junior
  7. Vinicius Tassoni Civile
  8. Rodolfo Rodrigo Pereira Santos
  9. Giulia Fernandes Moça Trevisani
  10. Laura Jantsch Ferla
  11. Gabriel Sodré Ramalho
  12. Maria Eduarda Santos Puga
  13. Virgínia Fernandes Moça Trevisani
  14. Alvaro Nagib Atallah

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Abstract

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged in China in December 2019 and rapidly spread. Although extraordinary efforts have been made on research regarding pharmacological interventions, none have proven effective. This is the protocol for a rapid living systematic review that aims to compare the effectiveness and safety of different pharmacological interventions for the treatment of COVID-19.

METHODS

rapid living systematic review methodology with Network Meta-Analysis following the recommendations of Cochrane Handbook. We will include randomized controlled trials (RCT) and quasi-RCTs that evaluate single and/or combined pharmacological interventions at any dose for the treatment of COVID-19. We will search PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), LILACS, Scopus and SciELO to identify potentially eligible studies. No language restrictions will be used in the selection. We will perform the critical appraisal of included studies with the Risk of Bias tool and the certainty of evidence will be evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE).

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.02.20088823: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationSearch Strategy: We will use the terms related to the problem of interest and the filter for randomized studies provided by Haynes et al. (8).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Design: We will perform a rapid living systematic review methodology with network metaanalysis following the recommendations proposed by the Cochrane Handbook (7).
    Cochrane Handbook
    suggested: None
    Eligibility Criteria: Data Sources and Searches: We will search PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), LILACS, Scopus and SciELO using relevant descriptors and synonyms, adapting the search to the specifications of each database to identify published, ongoing, and unpublished studies.
    Embase
    suggested: (EMBASE, RRID:SCR_001650)
    Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials
    suggested: (Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, RRID:SCR_006576)
    The search strategy in MEDLINE via Pubmed is shown in Table 1.
    MEDLINE
    suggested: (MEDLINE, RRID:SCR_002185)
    Pubmed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)
    Assessment of Methodological Quality in included studies and certainty of evidence: We will perform critical appraisal of included studies with Risk of Bias tool (10) as recommended by Cochrane Collaboration.
    Cochrane Collaboration
    suggested: None

    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 10.1101/2020.05.02.20088823v1 on medRxiv