Inhaled aviptadil for the possible treatment of COVID-19 in patients at high risk for ARDS: study protocol for a randomized, placebo-controlled, and multicenter trial

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide), published as a clinical study.

Despite the fast establishment of new therapeutic agents in the management of COVID-19 and large-scale vaccination campaigns since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in early 2020, severe disease courses still represent a threat, especially to patients with risk factors.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 19 patients were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults.

This multicenter, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, randomized trial with 132 adult patients hospitalized for COVID-19 and at high risk for ARDS (adapted early acute lung injury score ≥ 2 points) is conducted in five public hospitals in Europe.

Key exclusion criteria are mechanical ventilation at baseline, need for intensive care at baseline, and severe hemodynamic instability.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and multicenter study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide).

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) group a baseline to be compared against.

Running at several centres spread the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) study over different clinics and patient groups.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including COVID-19, Drug Combinations, Phentolamine, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Respiratory Distress Syndrome, SARS-CoV-2 and Saline Solution.

The authors tagged it with the keywords ARDS, Aviptadil and VIP.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) in 19 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2022 (Trials), a journal based in England.

More context: the VIP (Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide) compound page, all human trials.