No significant benefit of moderate-dose vitamin C on severe COVID-19 cases

DOI record: { "DOI": "10.1515/med-2021-0361", "ISSN": [ "2391-5463" ], "URL": "http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/med-2021-0361", "abstract": "<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\n <jats:p>There is no specific drug for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We aimed to investigate the possible clinical efficacy of moderate-dose vitamin C infusion among inpatients with severe COVID-19. Data of 397 adult patients with severe COVID-19 admitted to a designated clinical center of Wuhan Union Hospital (China) between February 13 and February 29, 2020, were collected. Besides standard therapies, patients were treated with vitamin C (2–4 g/day) or not. The primary outcome was all-cause death. Secondary outcome was clinical improvement of 2 points on a 6-point ordinal scale. About 70 participants were treated with intravenous vitamin C, and 327 did not receive it. No significant association was found between vitamin C use and death on inverse probability treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis (weighted hazard ratio [HR], 2.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91–7.89). Clinical improvement occurred in 74.3% (52/70) of patients in the vitamin C group and 95.1% (311/327) in the no vitamin C group. No significant difference was observed between the two groups on IPTW analysis (weighted HR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.55–1.07). Our findings revealed that in patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with moderate dose of intravenous vitamin C had no significant benefit on reducing the risk of death and obtaining clinical improvement.</jats:p>", "alternative-id": [ "10.1515/med-2021-0361" ], "author": [ { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Ultrasound, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Zheng", "given": "Shaoping", "sequence": "first" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University , Guangzhou , China" } ], "family": "Chen", "given": "Qiaosen", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University , Guangzhou , China" } ], "family": "Jiang", "given": "Hongbo", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Guo", "given": "Chunxia", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Luo", "given": "Jinzhuo", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Li", "given": "Sumeng", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Wang", "given": "Hua", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Li", "given": "Huadong", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" }, { "name": "Joint International Laboratory of Infection and Immunity, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Zheng", "given": "Xin", "sequence": "additional" }, { "affiliation": [ { "name": "Department of Infectious Diseases, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" }, { "name": "Joint International Laboratory of Infection and Immunity, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , Wuhan , China" } ], "family": "Weng", "given": "Zhihong", "sequence": "additional" } ], "container-title": [ "Open Medicine" ], "content-domain": { "crossmark-restriction": false, "domain": [] }, "created": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 9, 22 ] ], "date-time": "2021-09-22T21:20:40Z", "timestamp": 1632345640000 }, "deposited": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 12, 10 ] ], "date-time": "2021-12-10T05:30:54Z", "timestamp": 1639114254000 }, "indexed": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 12, 16 ] ], "date-time": "2021-12-16T00:12:03Z", "timestamp": 1639613523854 }, "is-referenced-by-count": 1, "issn-type": [ { "type": "electronic", "value": "2391-5463" } ], "issue": "1", "issued": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 1, 1 ] ] }, "journal-issue": { "issue": "1", "published-online": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 4, 30 ] ] }, "published-print": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 4, 30 ] ] } }, "language": "en", "license": [ { "URL": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0", "content-version": "unspecified", "delay-in-days": 0, "start": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 1, 1 ] ], "date-time": "2021-01-01T00:00:00Z", "timestamp": 1609459200000 } } ], "link": [ { "URL": "https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/med-2021-0361/xml", "content-type": "application/xml", "content-version": "vor", "intended-application": "text-mining" }, { "URL": "https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/med-2021-0361/pdf", "content-type": "unspecified", "content-version": "vor", "intended-application": "similarity-checking" } ], "member": "374", "original-title": [], "page": "1403-1414", "prefix": "10.1515", "published": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 1, 1 ] ] }, "published-online": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 9, 22 ] ] }, "published-print": { "date-parts": [ [ 2021, 9, 22 ] ] }, "publisher": "Walter de Gruyter GmbH", "reference": [ { "DOI": "10.1001/jama.2020.12839", "doi-asserted-by": "crossref", "key": "2021121004381567292_j_med-2021-0361_ref_001", "unstructured": "Wiersinga WJ, Rhodes A, Cheng AC, Peacock SJ, Prescott HC. 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