Patients in Derby and Burton participate in life-saving Covid trial
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton has been directly involved in research on the new life-saving Covid-19 drug. The Trust is an active participant in the Recovery Trial, which involves a number of treatment options including Dexamethasone. Over 120 patients have been recruited to date and 21 of those, selected at random, were treated with Dexamethasone. The low-dose steroid treatment, is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus according to Chief investigator Prof Peter Horby of Oxford University. The trial reduced the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it reduced deaths by a fifth.
In March 2020, the RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 therapy) trial was established as a randomised clinical trial to test a range of potential treatments for COVID-19, including low-dose dexamethasone (a steroid treatment). Over 11,500 patients have been enrolled from over 175 NHS hospitals in the UK, including those at UHDB.
Dr Teresa Grieve, Assistant Director of Research & Development at UHDB, said: “We’re very pleased to be playing our part in this on-going trial and to have contributed to the generation of this lifesaving new knowledge . Research and Development is an important part of the Trust and we wanted to make sure Derby and Burton was at the forefront in finding drugs that could improve the outcomes for our patients and across the world. We will continue to support national research projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I’d like to thank all those patients who agreed to take part in the trial and for the commitment of our staff in recruiting 120 patients.”
The Trusts involvement has been led by Principal Investigators Dr Tom Bewick and Dr Uttam Nanda.
Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and one of the Chief Investigators for the trial, said: “Dexamethasone is the first drug to be shown to improve survival in COVID-19. This is an extremely welcome result. The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
Martin Landray, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, one of the Chief Investigators, said: “Since the appearance of COVID-19 six months ago, the search has been on for treatments that can improve survival, particularly in the sickest patients. These preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are very clear – dexamethasone reduces the risk of death among patients with severe respiratory complications. COVID-19 is a global disease – it is fantastic that the first treatment demonstrated to reduce mortality is one that is instantly available and affordable worldwide.”
The UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said: “This is tremendous news today from the Recovery trial showing that dexamethasone is the first drug to reduce mortality from COVID-19. It is particularly exciting as this is an inexpensive widely available medicine. This is a ground-breaking development in our fight against the disease, and the speed at which researchers have progressed finding an effective treatment is truly remarkable. It shows the importance of doing high quality clinical trials and basing decisions on the results of those trials.”