COVID patients on SSRI antidepressants are less likely to die, study
finds
Electronic health records compared outcomes for patients across the
country

Date:
November 15, 2021
Source:
University of California - San Francisco
Summary:
A large analysis of health records from 87 health care centers
across the United States found that people taking a class of
antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
(SSRIs), particularly fluoxetine, were significantly less likely
to die of COVID-19 than a matched control group.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A large analysis of health records from 87 health care centers across
the United States found that people taking a class of antidepressants
called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), particularly fluoxetine, were significantly less likely to die of COVID-19 than a
matched control group.


==========================================================================
The results add to a body of evidence indicating that SSRIs may have
beneficial effects against the worst symptoms of COVID-19, although
large randomized clinical trials are needed to prove this.

"We can't tell if the drugs are causing these effects, but the statistical analysis is showing significant association," said Marina Sirota, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and a member of the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute (BCHSI) at UC San Francisco. "There's power
in the numbers." The UCSF-Stanford research team analyzed electronic
health records from the Cerner Real World COVID-19 de-identified database, which had information from almost 500,000 patients across the U.S. This included 83,584 adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January
and September, 2020. Of those, 3,401 patients were prescribed SSRIs.

The large size of the dataset enabled researchers to compare the outcomes
of patients with COVID-19 on SSRIs to a matched set of patients with
COVID-19 who were not taking them, thus teasing out the effects of age,
sex, race, ethnicity, and comorbidities associated with severe COVID-19,
such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as the other medications
the patients were taking.

The results showed that patients taking fluoxetine were 28 percent less
likely to die; those taking either fluoxetine or another SSRI called fluvoxamine were 26 percent less likely to die; and the entire group of patients taking any kind of SSRI was 8 percent less likely to die than
the matched patient controls.

Though the effects are smaller than those found in recent clinical trials
of new antivirals developed by Pfizer and Merck, the researchers said more treatment options are still needed to help bring the pandemic to an end.

"The results are encouraging," said Tomiko Oskotsky, MD, a research
scientist in Sirota's lab at BCHSI. "It's important to find as many
options as possible for treating any condition. A particular drug or
treatment may not work or be well tolerated by everyone. Data from
electronic medical records allow us to quickly look into existing drugs
that could be repurposed for treating COVID-19 or other conditions."
Other authors include David K. Stevenson, MD, Ivana Marić, PhD,
Ronald J.

Wong, PhD, and Nima Aghaeepour, PhD, of Stanford University; and Alice
Tang and Boris Oskotsky, PhD, of UCSF.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_San_Francisco. Original written by Laura
Kurtzman. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Tomiko Oskotsky, Ivana Marić, Alice Tang, Boris Oskotsky,
Ronald J.

Wong, Nima Aghaeepour, Marina Sirota, David K. Stevenson. Mortality
Risk Among Patients With COVID-19 Prescribed Selective Serotonin
Reuptake Inhibitor Antidepressants. JAMA Network Open, 2021; 4
(11): e2133090 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33090 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211115123538.htm

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