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Review
. 2023 Sep 16;9(10):e20155.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e20155. eCollection 2023 Oct.

Does colchicine reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome? An umbrella review of published meta-analyses

Mohammed I Danjuma  1   2   3 , Rana Sayed  4 , Maryam Aboughalia  4 , Aseel Hassona  4 , Basant Selim Elsayed  4 , Mohamed Elshafei  5 , Abdelnaser Elzouki  1   2   4
Affiliations
Review

Does colchicine reduce mortality in patients with COVID-19 clinical syndrome? An umbrella review of published meta-analyses

Mohammed I Danjuma et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Background: Despite significant improvements in both treatment and prevention strategies, as well as multiple commissioned reviews, there remains uncertainty regarding the survival benefit of repurposed drugs such as colchicine in patients with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) clinical syndrome.

Methods: In this umbrella review, we carried out a comprehensive search of PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Science Citation Index, and the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness between January 1, 2020 and January 31, 2023 for systematic reviews and meta-analyses evaluating the mortality-reducing benefits of colchicine in patients with COVID-19. This was to ascertain the exact relationship between colchicine exposure and mortality outcomes in these cohorts of patients. We utilized A Measurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews-2 (AMSTAR-2) to conduct an exhaustive methodological quality and risk of bias assessment of the included reviews.

Results: We included eighteen meta-analyses (n = 199,932 participants) in this umbrella review. Colchicine exposure was associated with an overall reduction of about 32% in the risk of mortality (odds ratio 0.68, confidence interval [CI] 0.58-0.78; I2 = 94%, p = 0.001). Further examination of pooled estimates of mortality outcomes by the quality effects model (corrected for the methodological quality and risk of bias of the constituent reviews) reported similar point estimates (OR 0.73; CI 0.59 to 0.91; I2 = 94%).

Conclusion: In a pooled umbrella evaluation of published meta-analyses of COVID-19 patient cohorts, exposure to colchicine was associated with a reduction in overall mortality. Although it remains uncertain if this effect could potentially be attenuated or augmented by COVID-19 vaccination.

Keywords: COVID-19; Colchicine; Meta-analysis; Mortality; Umbrella.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA Flow chart for study selection.
Fig. 2a
Fig. 2a
Forest plot of the pooled estimates of meta-analyses exploring mortality outcomes in Covid-19 patients exposed to colchicine. Fig. 2b. Forest plot of pooled odds ratios of mortality outcomes of Covid-19 patients following colchicine exposure by quality effects model.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
a. Doi plot Fig. 3b. Funnel plot.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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