A novel approach to managing COVID-19 patients; results of lopinavir plus doxycycline cohort

Excerpt

Cag et al. have recently published their work entitled “A novel approach to managing COVID-19 patients; results of lopinavir plus doxycycline cohort.” We congratulate the authors for their precious efforts in handling COVID-19 patients working on a step-wise approach for the best benefit of the patients, while minimizing the hospital’s workload. Given the absence of any specific treatment for COVID-19, various drug combinations have been in use in several countries, and any successful regimen/algorithm is of interest to clinicians worldwide. Unfortunately, the majority of treatment-related studies published so far are observational in nature, with potential for selection and information biases; confounding control is often insufficient due to missing data on several variables of interest; and inadequate discussion of intrinsic limitations of the studies may evoke confusion among clinicians. In this respect, the manuscript needs clarification on some issues and opens a floor for discussion on the context, effectiveness, and safety of home-based treatment for COVID-19 [1]. …