Nicotine patches in patients on mechanical ventilation for severe COVID-19: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Epidemiologic studies have documented lower rates of active smokers compared to former or non-smokers in symptomatic patients affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

Randomization was stratified by centre, non- or former smoker status and Sequential Organ Function Assessment score (< or ≥ 7).

Main prespecified secondary outcomes included 60-day mortality, time to successful extubation, days alive and free from mechanical ventilation, renal replacement therapy, vasopressor support or organ failure at day 28.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and multicenter study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) could be set against what happens without it.

More than one site took part, so the participants came from several places.

The primary outcome was day-28 mortality.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include COVID-19, Intensive Care Units, Nicotine, Respiration, Artificial and SARS-CoV-2.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Acute respiratory failure, Nicotinic receptor, Randomized trial and Ventilation.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2022 (Intensive care medicine), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.