key: cord-0882147-jiu67iyz
authors: Gando, Alejandro; Alexay, Sofia; Galán Núñez, Juan P.; Cano, Lucía N.; Diez, Roberto A.; Costa, Luis A.
title: Comment on Hadadi et al., Does recombinant human erythropoietin administration in critically ill COVID‐19 patients have miraculous therapeutic effects? J. Med. Virol. 2020; 92:915‐918
date: 2021-03-01
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.26879
sha: 051c69ad6a59aa17c2da7694b6138c9c36be23c8
doc_id: 882147
cord_uid: jiu67iyz

An answer to the question posed by Hadadi et al., cannot be completely provided and further experimental, basic studies, are required to test whether epoetin possesses additional, still unknown activities to improve the treatment of COVID-19. In the while, we propose that though interesting, current information does not support treatment with epoetin to fight SARS-CoV2 infection unless other factors, such as renal anemia are present This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

None of the patients died during hospitalization and all cases recovered between 12 and 20 days. All were discharged without medication. None required mechanical ventilation nor became septic.

No difference was found in the clinical parameters nor in the virological evaluation between cases treated with epoetin and those who received only standard care. As expected, due to the short period of treatment and low dose, no serious adverse events attributable to epoetin were detected.

In comparison with the case reported by Hadadi et al., we consider that the main differences are that our patients were not so critically ill as their patients and the presence of a simultaneous group of patients who only received standard care. A high proportion of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 are asymptomatic or present only limited symptoms and recover spontaneously, though this characterization was not evident at the beginning of the pandemics.

Does recombinant human erythropoietin administration in critically ill COVID-19 patients have miraculous therapeutic effects

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