The use of corticosteroids and tocilizumab in the treatment of covid-19: review article

Abstract

This study has an objective to accomplish a review of literature about the role of corticosteroids and tocilizumab in the treatment of the disease caused by new coronavirus (COVID-19). The most revised articles are observational, case-control and clinic randomized essays published in indexed magazines and it brings the current recommendations of national and international guidelines of clinic management of COVID-19. Thereby the use of corticosteroids had been rejected in the beginning of the researches, nowadays it has been adopted for patients with severe disease and it has been recommended in most of the guidelines. On the other hand, the timely identification of the hyper inflammatory state caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection and its treatment could be crucial to interrupt the cascade, leading to irreversible lung damage and death. Therefore, the tocilizumab can be considered as a rescue therapy in case other treatments are not available or even come to failure. However, besides the good results in the treatment of patients infected with COVID-19, the data collected and analysis about the use of tocilizumab has not been enough to make its use recommended by the worldwide guidelines. In conclusion, more robust studies with higher levels of evidence are needed to prove the benefit and safety of drugs used for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.