Esteroides y COVID-19: una revisión de la evidencia en crecimiento durante la pandemia

The specific mechanism by which steroids would act on sustained lung inflammation, as well as the definition of the best drug to use and the appropriate treatment duration remain to be the objectives of ongoing clinical trials. As clinicians, we believe that the potent anti-inflammatory properties of synthetic steroids are well defined and definitive evidence that other anti-inflammatory strategies provide better efficacy is still lacking, at least in COVID-19. Although synthetic steroids share a pronounced anti-inflammatory action and few mineralocorticoid effects, their bioequivalence and different kinetics should be considered, due to the high variability of individual pharmacokinetics, the appropriate use and prescription of these drugs, given that they could trigger various effects that could negatively impact the clinical course of the patient with COVID-19. In addition, many of the drugs currently considered in the management of the patient with this disease can enhance the half-life and appearance of adverse effects of corticosteroids and some adverse effects of these other drugs can simulate complications associated with the use of corticosteroids, which could lead to an early and untimely suspension of them. Numerous clinical studies and study articles based on narrative reviews have served as guides for clinicians in the midst of this pandemic; however, the results of these should be interpreted with caution. For these reasons, we have performed an analysis based on the GRADE system of these studies to contrast the information included in the clinical studies and minimize the error of analysis.