On March 16, Leonard Whitehurst was admitted to the Royal Cornwall hospital with a confirmed case of COVID-19. His doctor, Giorgio Gentile, said that Whithurst's condition has deteriorated, describing it as "very grim."
Thankfully, the 72-year-old was saved after his doctors decided to give him a promising arthritis drug that is under clinical trials by doctors worldwide. Tocilizumab showed promising results in treating COVID-19 patients in Italy.
The drug is marketed as RoZctemra or Actemra, used to suppress the immune system of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Its effect on COVID-19 has the potential to halt the cytokine storm that happens when the immune system goes into overdrive and begins attacking the body.
Mr. Whitehurst's condition instantly improved after he received the drug as a last-ditch attempt, and is now recovering at home. Dr. Gentile believes that Whitehurst us the first to try the arthritis drug in the UK back in March following the advice of doctors from other countries.
The tocilizumab drug is now part of the three major trials on British coronavirus patients, expecting its first results by June or July.
Tocilizumab saves the patient with "very grim" condition
Dr. Gentile is a consultant nephrologist from Italy who has worked at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust since 2015.
He said that Mr. Whitehurst was in critical condition, needing 19 liters of oxygen but had not been put on a ventilator. The 72-year-old patient was deteriorating quickly, and putting him into the intensive care unit was not an option as the patient was not prepared to be artificially ventilated, his outlook was very grim at that time.
Dr. Gentile was so desperate to save his patient that he gave him tocilizumab, which seemed the only option left to try and save his patient's life. He regularly reads medical literature of COVId-19 from different countries that are also battling the disease.
Furthermore, he became aware of the drug's multiple anecdotal reports of people having severe conditions that had dramatically improved because of the medication. He said that the AIFA- Italian equivalent of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency- had just approved a large scale test trial with tocilizumab and was actively recruiting people.
Another promising study of 20 patients from China claimed the efficacy of the drug, which cured 95% of critically ill patients.
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According to Dr. Gentile, Mr. Whitehurst had all the laboratory signs of the so-called "cytokine storm." With approval from the hospital and the patient, he decided to give him tocilizumab, which was administered quickly.
Mr. Whitehurst received two infusions of tocilizumab 12 hours apart, but before he was given the drug, his oxygen saturation was 75%, which is below the normal reading that should be between 80 and 100. His oxygen saturation improved very quickly after receiving the drug and kept improving gradually and steadily over the next days.
Mr. Whitehurst was discharged from the hospital last week, smiling and overjoyed, after spending more than a month in the hospital.
One of the three major trials
Tocilizumab is part of three major trials involving British patients. Results are expected by June or July, reported by MailOnline.
One of the big trials is the Recovery trial, which is testing four promising treatments such as HIV, malaria, and antibiotic drugs. They have already recruited about 6,000 NHS patients, which makes it the most extensive study looking at repurposing existing therapies to treat COVId-19. The drug will be administered to patients whose lungs have been severely damaged due to the virus.
Meanwhile, Chinese doctors were the first to try tocilizumab on patients given routine therapies who were diagnosed as severe or critical. After a few days, the patients' fever returned to normal and improved dramatically, according to Dr. Xiaoling Xu and his colleagues.
CT also showed damage to the lungs reduced significantly around the fourth and fifth day of treatment. The authors concluded that tocilizumab is an effective treatment among patients with severe cases of COVID-19.
