Application of nasal spray containing dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and ethanol during the COVID-19 pandemic may protect healthcare workers: A randomized controlled trials

  1. Ali Hosseinzadeh
  2. Abbas Tavakolian
  3. Vahid Kia
  4. Hossein Ebrahimi
  5. Hossein Sheibani
  6. Ehsan Binesh
  7. Reza Jafari
  8. Seyed Mohammad Mirrezaie
  9. Moslem Jafarisani
  10. Mohammad Hassan Emamian

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Abstract

Background

Coronavirus pandemic has affected a large population worldwide. Currently, the standard care for individuals who are exposed is supportive care, symptomatic management, and isolation. The aim of our study was to evaluate effects of combined use of ethanol and DMSO as a nasal spray in preventing COVID-19.

Methods

We conducted a randomized controlled trial on volunteer healthcare workers of medical centers that were at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 in Shahroud, Iran. Two hundred and thirty-two participants were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups to receive DMSO/ethanol or routine care, respectively. The subjects were followed for 4 weeks to determine the incidence of COVID-19 infection in each group based on the RT-qPCR test. Finally, absolute risk difference and relative risk were calculated to evaluate the effect of DMSO in prevent COVID-19.

Results

The results showed that the incidence of COVID-19 in the control group and intervention group were 0.07 and 0.008, respectively. The relative risk (RR) was 0.12 (0.9-0.02) according to the incidence rate in the two groups.

Conclusion

combined application of DMSO and ethanol in healthcare providers can considerably prevent COVID-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.06.21259749v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.06.21259749: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsConsent: The process of conducting the study, the possible benefits and harms of the intervention, the right to withdraw from the study at the desired time, and the confidentiality of the information obtained were explained to eligible individuals and informed consent was obtained from them.
    IRB: The research proposal was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee affiliated with Shahroud University of Medical Sciences (decree code: IR.SHMU.REC.1399.091).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationA single-center, two-armed 1:1, randomized controlled trial design was conducted to examine effects of DMSO-ethanol nasal spray in the prevention of COVID-19.
    BlindingDue to the nature of the study, it was not possible to blind the participants but the data collector, and the data analyzer were blinded.
    Power AnalysisConsidering the power of 80%, α=0.05, effect size 0.1, the minimum sample size was estimated to be 93 individuals in each group.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    At the beginning of the study, serum IgG and IgM antibodies were tested using a rapid test kit to confirm that volunteers were not infected with COVID-19.
    IgM
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    STATA version 16 was used for the data analysis.
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.06.21259749v1 on medRxiv