Abstract

Aim: COVID-19 is a lethal disease for which there is still no specific treatment. The study aims to retrospectively investigate the effect of adding lopinavir/ritonavir to the treatment of patients using favipiravir (in the ward or intensive care unit) on mortality.

Methods: This study was conducted in 181 Rt-PCR(+) adult patients with severe and critical COVID-19. Demographic and laboratory data, antiviral agents used in treatment (with or without lopinavir-ritonavir), presence of intubation, and clinical outcome were recorded. The patients were categorized into Group 1 (not receiving lopinavir-ritonavir), Group 2 (administered lopinavir-ritonavir in ward), and Group 3 (administered lopinavir-ritonavir in the intensive care unit).

Results: The lowest mortality rate was found with Group 2 (21.4%) while this rate was 77.9% for Group 3 and 42.3% for Group 1 (p<0.001). There was no significant difference in length of hospital stay among groups (p>0.05). While 35.2% (25 patients) of Group 1 needed intubation, this rate was 21.4% (9 patients) in Group 2 (p<0.001).

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that lopinavir / ritonavir treatment reduced mortality and the need for intubation when initiated before the critical pneumonia phase. Lopinavir/ritonavir may be useful in the treatment of COVID-19, especially as part of the combination regimen.

Keywords: COVID-19, Lopinavir / ritonavir, pneumonia

Copyright and license

Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This is an open-access article published by Bolu İzzet Baysal Training and Research Hospital under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite

1.
Demirkol ME, Afşin E, Balcı M. The effect of lopinavir - ritonavir on mortality in COVID-19 pneumonia. Northwestern Med J. 2024;4(4):232-7. https://doi.org/10.54307/2024.NWMJ.158

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