The effect of corticosteroids, antibiotics, and anticoagulants on the
development of post-COVID-19 syndrome in COVID-19 hospitalized patients
Abstract
Aim: To assess the effect of commonly used drugs in the treatment of
hospitalized COVID-19 patients on the development of post-COVID-19
syndrome. Methods: Data from patients hospitalized in Medisch Spectrum
Twente with an COVID-19 infection was collected from two separate
databases, the MST clinical database containing the in-hospital
electronic health records of COVID-19 patients and the Post-COVID cohort
database containing patient follow-up data of the same patients. The
aforementioned databases were then merged to determine the association
between patient treatment with corticosteroids, antibiotics or
anticoagulants during the hospital stay and the development of
post-COVID-19 syndrome 6 months after hospital discharge. Results: A
total of 123 patients had clinical data and 6 months follow-up data
available. Out of these patients, 33 patients (26.8%) had developed and
were still affected by post-COVID-19 syndrome 6 months after hospital
discharge. Multivariate analysis showed that patients treated with
corticosteroids were associated with a significantly lower chance (OR
0.32, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.90) of developing post-COVID-19 syndrome while
antibiotics (OR 1.26, 95% CI 0.47 to 3.39) and anticoagulants (OR 0.55,
95% CI 0.18 to 1.71) were not significantly associated. Conclusion:
This study showed that corticosteroids have a significant protective
effect on the development of post-COVID-19 syndrome in hospitalized
patients. While anticoagulants also indicate a protective trend, this
effect was not statistically significant. On the contrary, patients
treated with antibiotics were shown to have increased chances of
developing post-COVID-19 syndrome, although this effect was also not
statistically significant