Influence of colchicine prescription in COVID-19-related hospital admissions: a survival analysis
Alfredo Madrid-García, Inés Pérez, José Ignacio Colomer, Leticia León-Mateos, Juan A Jover, Benjamín Fernández-Gutiérrez, Lydia Abásolo-Alcazar, Luis Rodríguez-Rodríguez
Therapeutic Advances in Musculoskeletal Disease, doi:10.1177/1759720x211002684
Aims: To analyze the association between colchicine prescription and COVID-19-related hospital admissions in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). Methods: Patients attending a rheumatology outpatient clinic from a tertiary care center in Madrid, Spain, from 1 September 2019 to 29 February 2020 were included. Patients were assigned as exposed or unexposed based on whether they were prescribed with colchicine in their last visit to the clinic during the 6 months before the start of the observation period. Treatment changes during the observation period were also considered. The primary outcome was COVID-19-related hospital admissions between 1 March and 20 May 2020. Secondary outcome included COVID-19-related mortality. Several weighting techniques for data balancing, based and non-based on the propensity score, followed by Cox regressions were performed to estimate the association of colchicine prescription on both outcomes. Discussion: The number of patients entered in the study was 9379, with 406 and 9002 exposed and unexposed follow-up periods, respectively. Generalized Boosted Models (GBMs) and Empirical Balancing Calibration Weighting (EBCW) methods showed the best balance for COVID-19-related hospital admissions. Colchicine prescription did not show a statistically significant association after covariable balancing (p-value = 0.195 and 0.059 for GBM and EBCW, respectively). Regarding mortality, the low number of events prevented a success variable balancing and analysis. Conclusion: Colchicine prescription does not play a significant protective or risk role in RMD patients regarding COVID-19-related hospital admissions. Our observations could support the maintenance of colchicine prescription in those patients already being treated, as it is not associated with a worse prognosis.
Author contributions LRR and LAA conceived and designed the study. IP, JIC, LLM, JAJ, and BFG collected data. AMG, LAA, and LRR performed the data analysis and interpreted the data. All of the authors were involved in the drafting and/or revising of the manuscript.
Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Funding The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Ministry of Health, Spain (CPII17/00014; PI18/01188; CP16/00916; and RD16/0012/0014) and cofounded by el Fondo
Ethics statement The study was approved by the Hospital Clínico San Carlos Ethics Committee (approval number 20/268-E-BS). This study was conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
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