Oral Azvudine (FNC) Tablets in Patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant: A Retrospective Cohort Study
Wenmei Chen, Honggang Xu, Lei Hong, Ran Yang, Caiqiu Peng, Guiqiang Wang, Prof Wei Li
doi:10.1101/2023.01.05.23284180
Background: There is a lack of data on the efficacy of oral Azvudine in Coronavirus Disease treatment. This study aimed to assess the association between Azvudine treatment and clinical outcomes in a cohort of patients infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. Methods: This is a retrospective study conducted in two mobile cabin hospitals. All consecutive patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 admitted from August to October 2022 were included in the study. Linear regression models and Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the association between Azvudine treatment and time to obtain the first negative nucleic acid test results. Results: A total of 207 patients were analyzed, of whom 166 patients (80.2%) received Azvudine treatment after hospitalization, and the rest did not. Linear regression models showed that Azvudine treatment was associated with reduced time to obtain the first negative nucleic acid test results after adjusting for age and gender [mean difference = -1.658; 95% CI: -2.772 to -0.544, P = 0.0039]. The multivariable Cox analysis conforms to the results from the linear regression model (hazard ratio = 1.461; 95% CI: 1.01 to 2.11, P = 0.044).
Conclusion: Azvudine treatment was associated with reduced virus shedding time. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings.
Declarations Acknowledgment: None.
Competing interest: The authors declare no competing interests. Authors' contributions: WL, GQW equally contributed to the conception and design of the research. WMC, HGX, LH, RY and CQP performed the research and analyzed the data. WMC, HGX and LH wrote the manuscript and interpretation of data. All authors critically revised the manuscript, agree to be fully accountable for ensuring the integrity and accuracy of the work, and read and approved the final manuscript. Ethics statement: This study was approved by the institutional review board of the First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College with a waiver of consent for the the retrospective observational design (No. 2020KY112, 2020KY016). Data are presented as n (%) or median (interquartile range).
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