Protective Effects of Colchicine in Non-Hospitalized COVID-19 Save

A press release from the Montreal Heart Institute has announced that the COLCORONA clinical trial has provided evidence of the protective effect of colchicine; demonstrating a 21% reduced risk of death or hospitalizations in patients with COVID-19 compared to placebo. 

COLCORONA trial was a contact-less, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of non-hospitalized patients recruited from Canada, the United States, Europe, South America and South Africa. To be included, the 4488 patients had to be diagnosed with COVID-19 (proven by a naso-pharyngeal PCR test) and have at least one risk factor for COVID-19 complications. 

The results have not been peer-reviewed, nor published, the press release states that analysis of 4159 patients "approached statistical significance". Yet they claim that colchicine was associated with statistically significant reductions in the risk of death or hospitalization compared to placebo. Colchicine reduced hospitalizations by 25%, the need for mechanical ventilation by 50%, and deaths by 44%. 

COLCORONA was coordinated by the Montreal Heart Institute’s Montreal Health Innovations Coordinating Center, and funded by the Government of Quebec, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Montreal philanthropist Sophie Desmarais, and the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard. CGI, Dacima and Pharmascience of Montreal were also collaborators in the trial.