Colchicine Fills Spike as Preliminary Research Reveals It May Help Prevent COVID-19 Complications
Key takeaways:
Colchicine is an ancient medicine that may be useful in preventing COVID-19 complications, according to early research out of Canada.
Findings indicate that colchicine reduced the risk of death or hospitalizations by 21%.
Patients are filling colchicine prescriptions at a higher rate than in previous years — possibly due to the research.
After preliminary research indicated that the medication colchicine may reduce COVID-19 severity, prescription fills increased by 45%, according to GoodRx Research.
Colchicine is typically used to prevent and treat gout attacks, and can also treat familial Mediterranean fever. Its recorded use as an herbal remedy for joint pain goes back to at least 1500 BCE.
A recently completed study by the Montreal Heart Institute (the COLCORONA trial) suggests that colchicine may reduce hospitalizations and death from COVID-19. And while the research is early, and some argue the validity of the findings, a spike in fills shows that some may have begun taking it for COVID-19 treatment.
Until recently, colchicine fill rates were steady compared to the average fill rate in previous years. As the chart above shows, a slow increase in fills began in December 2020. Then, in January 2021, the fill rate jumped to 0.12%, a 45% increase from the average colchicine fill rate in previous years.
Why is colchicine being considered as a COVID-19 treatment?
Since the spring of 2020, researchers have suggested colchicine could be a potential treatment for COVID-19 patients. Given its anti-inflammatory properties, researchers wondered if it could help prevent the “cytokine storm” that occurs in patients.
Cytokines are small proteins that help your cells to communicate with each other. A cytokine storm is when your body releases too many cytokines at once. Having too many cytokines circulating in the blood can cause fatal symptoms such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), severe pneumonia, multiorgan failure, and blood clots.
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What does the research say?
There are currently 29 studies investigating colchicine and COVID-19. Among these, only two have been completed, and none have published official results.
The Montreal Heart Institute, the authors of one of the completed studies (COLCORONA), published a preprint article sharing preliminary results on January 27, 2021. They stated in a press release that their research showed colchicine reduced the risk of death or hospitalization of all enrolled study patients with COVID-19 by 21%. Of those with confirmed COVID-19, they noted that colchicine reduced hospitalizations by 25%, the need for ventilation by 50%, and deaths by 44%.
Two other studies published in the fall of 2020 found lower mortality and higher numbers of patients discharged after treatment with colchicine compared to those who did not receive it. However, both of these studies were small case studies. In January 2021, a systematic analysis of study results on the impact of colchicine use on the mortality of COVID-19 patients was published. It concluded that there is a need for a larger and randomized controlled trial to determine colchicine’s efficacy as a potential treatment for COVID-19.
Summing it all up
Colchicine studies are still ongoing, and definitive results have yet to be published and peer-reviewed. However, perhaps due to the research around colchicine, our data shows that patients are filling prescriptions for it at a markedly higher rate than in previous years.
Colchicine is not approved as a treatment for COVID-19 patients, and you should not take it unless your physician prescribes it to you. Those who are elderly, on cardiovascular medications, or have heart or kidney problems may experience harmful side effects from colchicine use.
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Co-contributor: Jeroen van Meijgaard, PhD
Methodology
Using a representative sample of U.S. prescription fills, we calculated the monthly share as the number of fills for colchicine divided by the number of fills of all drugs. The average fill rate in prior years (2015-2019) was calculated as the total number of fills for colchicine in each month across all 5 years, divided by the number of fills of all drugs for the corresponding months.
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