A new trial led by the Perelman School of Medicine will evaluate whether the drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) can benefit people infected with COVID-19, as well as whether taking the drug preventatively may help people avoid infection altogether. The study, called Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 with HCQ (PATCH), is currently enrolling patients in three separate substudies.
PATCH substudy 1 will evaluate HCQ compared to placebo in infected patients who are quarantined at home. PATCH substudy 2 will evaluate high dose compared to low dose HCQ in hospitalized patients. PATCH sub-study 3 will evealuate HCQ compared to placebo prophylactically in health care workers working with COVID-19 patients to evaluate whether it can prevent infection. Substudies 1 and 3 are double-blind placebo controlled studies, meaning neither the patient nor the doctor will know whether they are taking HCQ or placebo until the end of the study. Importantly, if the patient or health care worker starts getting worse, they can be “unblinded”, and the trial allows crossover to HCQ if the patient was assigned placebo.
“We know HCQ can be an effective antiviral in a lab setting, but despite recent public conversation, there is no definitive evidence it can work in humans infected with COVID-19. It is our hope that this trial will provide critical evidence as to whether this drug may be effective in combating the current pandemic,” says the study’s principal investigator Ravi K. Amaravadi, an associate professor of hematology-oncology who has spent his career studying HCQ and related compounds.
For this trial, Amaravadi is working with a multidisciplinary team at Penn, including Benjamin S. Abella, a professor of emergency medicine, and Ian D. Frank, associate chief of Infectious Diseases, as well as colleagues in pathology and laboratory medicine, cardiology, statistics, and the Abramson Cancer Center.
Read more at Penn Medicine News.
