Two randomized controlled platform trials demonstrated that early treatment with Paxlovid “doesn’t cut hospitalization or all-cause death rates in vaccinated high-risk COVID-19 patients, although it does speed recovery.” CIDRAP has the news.
Both trials in question “randomly assigned high-risk, vaccinated adult COVID-19 outpatients to receive either usual care plus [Paxlovid] twice a day for five days, or usual care alone from April 2022 to September 2024.”
The first trial, called PANORAMIC, ended with 14 of 1,698 (0.8%) Paxlovid recipients and 11 of 1,673 participants (0.7%) in the usual-care group hospitalized or deceased. In the other trial, CanTreatCOVID, 2 of 343 (0.6%) participants in the Paxlovid group and 4 of 324 (1.2%) participants in the usual-care group were hospitalized or died.
SARS-CoV-2 viral load was “lower by the end of Paxlovid treatment. Most Paxlovid recipients reported adverse events, which primarily involved taste and gastrointestinal side effects, and treatment discontinuation was relatively common. Serious adverse events were reported in nine Paxlovid recipients in the PANORAMIC trial and in four in the CanTreatCOVID trial.” Paxlovid recipients also had a “shorter median time to early sustained recovery than the usual-care group.” People felt better sooner from treatment with the drug, but there was “no reduction in the already low rate of hospitalizations or deaths.”
An accompanying commentary stated that the “enhanced recovery and more-rapid reduction in viral load indicate a degree of clinical efficacy and antiviral activity.”
