SynthesisClinical and translational science2023
Hydroxychloroquine for treatment of non-hospitalized adults with COVID-19: A meta-analysis of individual participant data of randomized trials.
Synthesis in Clinical and translational science, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 4 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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Features and results availability of non-commercial Spanish COVID-19 trials: a systematic review of clinical trial registers and corresponding literature.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- The relationship between viral clearance rates and disease progression in early symptomatic COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2024Pooled it
- Outpatient randomized controlled trials to reduce COVID-19 hospitalization: Systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of medical virology · 2023Pooled it
- Hydroxychloroquine for treatment of non-hospitalized adults with COVID-19: A meta-analysis of individual participant data of randomized trials.Clinical and translational science · 2023Pooled it
- The PRINCIPLE randomised controlled open label platform trial of hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID19 in community based patients at high risk.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- One Week of Oral Camostat Versus Placebo in Nonhospitalized Adults With Mild-to-Moderate Coronavirus Disease 2019: A Randomized Controlled Phase 2 Trial.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2023Trial
- Hydroxychloroquine use during the first COVID-19 wave: a case study highlighting the urgent need to enhance research practices within the publication ecosystem.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2025Article
- COVID-19 therapeutics.Clinical microbiology reviews · 2024Review
- Drivers of COVID-19 Outcomes in Long-Term Care Facilities Using Multi-Level Analysis: A Systematic Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
27 authors at 18 institutions in 7 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was initially promoted as an oral therapy for early treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Conventional meta-analyses cannot fully address the heterogeneity of different designs and outcomes of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing the efficacy of HCQ in outpatients with mild COVID-19. We conducted a pooled analysis of individual participant data from RCTs that evaluated the effect of HCQ on hospitalization and viral load reduction in outpatients with confirmed COVID-19. We evaluated the overall treatment group effect by log-likelihood ratio test (-2LL) from a generalized linear mixed model to accommodate correlated longitudinal binary data. The analysis included data from 11 RCTs. The outcome of virological effect, assessed in 1560 participants (N = 795 HCQ, N = 765 control), did not differ significantly between the two treatment groups (-2LL = 7.66; p = 0.18) when adjusting for cohort, duration of symptoms, and comorbidities. The decline in polymerase chain reaction positive tests from day 1 to 7 was 42.0 and 41.6 percentage points in the HCQ and control groups, respectively. Among the 2037 participants evaluable for hospitalization (N = 1058 HCQ, N = 979 control), we found no significant differences in hospitalization rate between participants receiving HCQ and controls (odds ratio 0.995; 95% confidence interval 0.614-1.610; -2LL = 0.0; p = 0.98) when adjusting for cohort, duration of symptoms, and comorbidities. This individual participant data meta-analysis of 11 HCQ trials that evaluated severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus 2 viral clearance and COVID-19 hospitalization did not show a clinical benefit of HCQ. Our meta-analysis provides evidence to support the interruption in the use of HCQ in mild COVID-19 outpatients to reduce progression to severe disease.
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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.