Pentoxifylline and Covid-19: A Systematic Review

  1. Diego Ramonfaur
  2. Carlos A. González-Assad
  3. José G. Paredes-Vázquez

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Abstract

At more than 10 months after the first case of COVID-19 was documented, the understanding of the pathogenesis of this viral illness is growing on a daily basis. A massive pro-inflammatory response on infected individuals involving several cytokines seems to play a key role on disease. As a result, therapeutic efforts have focused on anti-inflammatory strategies to ameliorate the disease, in sight of a lack of a truly effective anti-viral agent. Pentoxifylline (PTX) has been proposed by multiple authors as a potential therapeutic ally, targeting a variety of mechanisms as it has been shown to have antiviral, anti-inflammatory and hemodynamic effects. Importantly, anti-inflammatory effects center on down-regulation of cytokines such as interleukins and tumor necrosis factor. In pre-pandemic studies, PTX has demonstrated to change the clinical course of inflammatory diseases such as acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is a hallmark of severe COVID-19. Researchers agree it is pertinent to experimentally evaluate the effect this drug has on COVID-19 patients. The objective of this review is to summarize all the proposed mechanisms by which PTX may aid in the treatment of COVID-19, as well as prevent its deadly complications. Our interpretation of the literature is that the benefits PTX may bring to a patient with COVID-19 outweigh the risks this drug might pose on them. As a result, there is consensus regarding the evaluation of PTX in further experimental studies to better characterize its effects on COVID-19 patients.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.14.20194381: (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

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    We queried Pubmed and Google scholar search engines utilizing the following commands:
    Pubmed
    suggested: (PubMed, RRID:SCR_004846)
    Google scholar
    suggested: (Google Scholar, RRID:SCR_008878)

    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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations in our study include that no statistical analysis could be made, as no tangible evidence has been published to date.

    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

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.14.20194381 on medRxiv