For the authors of the study which pushed many countries to stop the use of hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of the coronavirus disease Covid-19, it is a new hard blow. The highly reputed journal The Lancet on Tuesday expressed reservations in an "expression of concern" in the scientific article it published on May 22.
Analyzing some 96,000 electronic medical records of patients hospitalized for Covid-19, the study concluded that hydroxychloroquine, derived from the antimalarial chloroquine, was not effective against the disease and that it even increased the risk of death and cardiac arrhythmia.
Last Thursday, a hundred doctors and scientists had published an open letter in The Guardian, pointing in particular to inconsistencies between the data from the company Surgisphere, used in the context of the study, and the number of patients treated in their hospital services. "Important scientific questions have been raised about the data reported in the article by Mandeep Mehra et al," recognize the editors of The Lancet on Tuesday.
Raoult pinned by the Medicines Agency
"Although an independent audit of the source and validity of the data has been commissioned by authors not affiliated with Surgisphere and is in progress, with results expected very soon, we are publishing an expression of concern to alert readers to the fact that serious scientific questions have been asked of us, "continues The Lancet. "We will update this notice as soon as we have more information. Friday, the review had already published a correction concerning Asian data allotted to Australia.
The Lancet has published a Correction to the paper by Mehra et al https://t.co/uohgN6Ev3H The results and conclusions remain unchanged. The Lancet encourages scientific debate and will publish responses to the study, along with a response from the authors, in the journal pic.twitter.com/9rL2YsTsfd
- The Lancet (@TheLancet) May 29, 2020After the publication of The Lancet study, the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) had issued an unfavorable opinion and the government had repealed the derogations authorizing the prescription of hydroxychloroquine. The Medicines Agency had also announced its wish to suspend clinical trials evaluating hydroxychloroquine in patients with Covid-19, like the World Health Organization (WHO).
The warning from The Lancet comes in the context of strong scientific controversy. The study was described as "messy" by Professor Didier Raoult, an ardent defender of treatments based on hydroxychloroquine, some of whose work has itself been called into question within the scientific community. According to Le Canard chained on Wednesday, the Medicines Agency seized the Order of Physicians after having noted that "the procedures for informing patients and tracking the motivation for the prescription" in the context of one of the therapeutic trials of Professor Raoult would "not comply with legal requirements".
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Other studies, particularly in the United States, have raised doubts about the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in seriously ill patients with coronavirus.