Di Franco S, Alfieri A, Petrou S, Damiani G, Passavanti MB, Pace MC, Leone S, Fiore M. Current status of COVID-19 treatment: An opinion review. World J Virol 2020; 9(3): 27-37 [PMID: 33024717 DOI: 10.5501/wjv.v9.i3.27]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Marco Fiore, MD, Academic Fellow, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Piazza Miraglia 2, Naples 80138, Italy. marco.fiore@unicampania.it
Research Domain of This Article
Virology
Article-Type of This Article
Opinion Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Virol. Sep 25, 2020; 9(3): 27-37 Published online Sep 25, 2020. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v9.i3.27
Current status of COVID-19 treatment: An opinion review
Sveva Di Franco, Aniello Alfieri, Stephen Petrou, Giovanni Damiani, Maria Beatrice Passavanti, Maria Caterina Pace, Sebastiano Leone, Marco Fiore
Sveva Di Franco, Aniello Alfieri, Maria Beatrice Passavanti, Maria Caterina Pace, Marco Fiore, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples 80138, Italy
Stephen Petrou, Department of Emergency Medicine, Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, New York, NY 11795, United States
Giovanni Damiani, Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of Milan, Milan 20122, Italy
Giovanni Damiani, Clinical Dermatology, IRCCS Instituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, Milan 20122, Italy
Sebastiano Leone, Division of Infectious Diseases, “San Giuseppe Moscati” Hospital, Avellino 83100, Italy
Author contributions: Di Franco S and Alfieri A contributed equally to this study; Di Franco S and Alfieri A designed the study and performed the research; Passavanti MB, Pace MC and Leone S supervised the manuscript; Petrou S and Damiani G provided critical reviews; Di Franco S, Alfieri A, and Fiore M wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marco Fiore, MD, Academic Fellow, Department of Women, Child and General and Specialized Surgery, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Piazza Miraglia 2, Naples 80138, Italy. marco.fiore@unicampania.it
Received: May 7, 2020 Peer-review started: May 7, 2020 First decision: July 25, 2020 Revised: August 7, 2020 Accepted: August 24, 2020 Article in press: August 24, 2020 Published online: September 25, 2020 Processing time: 140 Days and 4.9 Hours
Abstract
The pandemic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has garnered the attention of scientists worldwide in the search for an effective treatment while also focusing on vaccine development. Several drugs have been used for the management of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has affected many hospitals and health centers worldwide. Statistically significant results are lacking on the effectiveness of the experimented drugs in reducing COVID-19 morbidity or mortality, as there are very few published randomized clinical trials. Despite this, the literature offers some material for study and reflection. This opinion review attempts to address three burning questions on COVID-19 treatment options. (1) What kind of studies are currently published or ongoing in the treatment of patients with COVID-19? (2) What drugs are currently described in the literature as options of treatment for patients affected by the infection? And (3) Are there specific clinical manifestations related to COVID-19 that can be treated with a customized and targeted therapy? By answering these questions, we wish to create a summary of current COVID-19 treatments and the anti-COVID-19 treatments proposed in the recent clinical trials developed in the last 3 mo, and to describe examples of clinical manifestations of the SARS-CoV-2 infection with a cause-related treatment.
Core Tip: The pandemic spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to the need to standardize a therapeutic approach in order to offer the same indications for all patients admitted to the hospital admissions for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. However, no specific drug or drug regimen has been approved for treatment. This opinion review describes the recent literature on this topic and summarizes the treatment strategies currently in use for COVID-19 related complications.
