SynthesisExpert review of clinical immunology2021
Efficacy and safety of Tocilizumab in severe and critical COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Synthesis in Expert review of clinical immunology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Efficacy of tocilizumab in the treatment of COVID-19: An umbrella review.Reviews in medical virology · 2022Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of baricitinib and tocilizumab in hospitalized patients with COVID-19: A comparison using systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Pooled it
- Beneficial and harmful outcomes of tocilizumab in severe COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Pharmacotherapy · 2021Pooled it
- Evaluating the efficacy and safety of SpikoGen®, an Advax-CpG55.2-adjuvanted severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 spike protein vaccine: a phase 3 randomized placebo-controlled trial.Clinical microbiology and infection : the official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases · 2023Trial
- Evaluating the efficacy of different doses of tocilizumab in treating critically ill COVID-19 patients: a single-center retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Decoding NAD+ Metabolism in COVID-19: Implications for Immune Modulation and Therapy.Vaccines · 2024Review
- Mitigating target interference challenges in bridging immunogenicity assay to detect anti-tocilizumab antibodies.Bioanalysis · 2024Article
- Therapeutic Impact of Tocilizumab in the Setting of Severe COVID-19; an Updated and Comprehensive Review on Current Evidence.Archives of academic emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Evaluation of Early Tocilizumab Effect on Multiorgan Dysfunction in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19: A Propensity Score-Matched Study.Journal of intensive care medicine · 2023Article
- The effects of combination-therapy of tocilizumab and baricitinib on the management of severe COVID-19 cases: a randomized open-label clinical trial.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- [Should we interfere with the interleukin-6 receptor during COVID-19: What do we know?]Revue des maladies respiratoires · 2023Review
- Lack of Difference in Tocilizumab Efficacy in the Treatment of Severe COVID-19 Caused by Different SARS-CoV-2 Variants.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Title: Understanding a Low Vitamin D State in the Context of COVID-19.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Review
- Determination of the Monoclonal Antibody Tocilizumab by a Validated Micellar Electrokinetic Chromatography Method.Chromatographia · 2022Article
- Single versus multiple doses of Tocilizumab in critically ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): A two-center, retrospective cohort study.Journal of critical care · 2021Article
- Intensive Care Patients from the First COVID-19 Wave: One-Year Survival after Tocilizumab Treatment.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Article
- Association between tocilizumab and emerging multidrug-resistant organisms in critically ill patients with COVID-19: A multicenter, retrospective cohort study.BMC infectious diseases · 2021Article
- Effect of Tocilizumab in Reducing the Mortality Rate in COVID-19 Patients: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis.Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Article
- Efficacy of intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG) in COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Research in pharmaceutical sciencesArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesCurrently published papers and clinical guidelines regarding the effects of tocilizumab in severe and critical COVID-19 are contradictory. The aim of this meta-analysis was to combine the results of clinical studies of different designs to investigate the efficacy and safety of tocilizumab in severely-to-critically ill COVID-19 patients.
methodsA systematic search was performed in PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov, Scopus, and preprint servers up to 26 December 2020. Since a substantial heterogeneity was expected, a random-effects model was applied to calculate the pooled effect size (ES) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for each study outcome.
resultsForty-five comparative studies involving 13,189 patients and 28 single-arm studies involving 1,770 patients were analyzed. The risk of mortality (RR of 0.76 [95%CI 0.65 to 0.89], P < 0.01) and intubation (RR of 0.48 [95%CI 0.24 to 0.97], P = 0.04) were lower in tocilizumab patients compared with controls. We did not find any significant difference in secondary infections, length of hospital stay, hospital discharge before day 14, and ICU admission between groups.
conclusionTocilizumab can improve clinical outcomes and reduce mortality rates in severe to critical COVID-19 patients. Large-scale randomized controlled trials are still required to improve the statistical power of meta-analysis.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.