Anti-inflammatory drug may treat brain damage in patients with Covid-19

According to a new study from UTHealth Houston and other institutions, an anti-inflammatory drug may have the ability to treat systemic inflammation and brain damage in patients with severe COVID-19 and greatly lower their risk of dying.

A group of researchers led by Louise D. McCullough, MD, PhD, professor and Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Chair in the Department of Neurology at UTHealth Houston, conducted a multi-site, randomised, controlled trial. Aaron M. Gusdon, MD, assistant professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston; H. Alex Choi, MD, associate professor in the department as well The trial's findings were released in Science Translational Medicine today.

24 individuals with severe COVID-19 were included in the study and randomly assigned to receive either a single intravenous dosage of placebo or OP-101 at 2, 4, or 8 mg/kg. The standard of therapy, which included corticosteroids, was given to all patients.

According to Gusdon, the study's first author, "OP-101 is a novel nanotherapeutic drug that selectively targets active macrophages and microglia, the key immune cells in the brain. We were thrilled to provide this medication to these critically ill patients at Memorial Hermann Hospital because of its exceptional safety profile.

The SARS-CoV-2-induced hyper inflammation is a primary contributor to COVID-19 disease severity. Neurofilament light chain and glial fibrillary acidic protein, which are indicators of neurological injury, were found to be reduced by OP-101 more effectively than by a placebo.

Furthermore, the risk for the composite endpoint of death or mechanical breathing at 30 or 60 days after treatment was 18% for patients in the combined OP-101 treatment arms compared to 71 % for individuals receiving the placebo. 3 of the 7 patients who received a placebo and 14 of the 17 patients who received OP-101 survived 60 days after treatment.

According to the data, OP-101 was well tolerated in the critically sick patient population and may be a successful therapy option for COVID-19 patients who are hospitalised.

Despite the fact that this was a small-dose escalation experiment, Gusdon noted that there was obviously a significant signal in favour of benefit at both the acute and chronic time points. "It is incredibly intriguing to consider the idea that this therapy may also help patients with other conditions that trigger systemic inflammatory responses, including different types of brain injury."A nanotherapeutic substance called OP-101 has been tested in a number of animal models of inflammatory disease and has demonstrated superior anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effects.

More than 300 million individuals have been infected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and more than 5 million have died as a result.

The study's senior author is Sujatha Kannan, MD, professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Baltimore, Maryland's Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The medical school's Nauder Faraday, MD, and Rangaramanujam M. Kannan, PhD, as well as the Bloomberg School of Public Health's Derek K. Ng, PhD, were the other Johns Hopkins University co-authors.