ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Dr. Eric Lenze, Washington University School of Medicine professor of psychiatry and lead investigator of this study and Dr. Fred Buckhold, a SLU Care general internist at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital talk about the clinical trial to evaluate an antidepressant drug called Fluvoxamine as a potential COVID-19 treatment at WashU in St. Louis.
Dr. Lenze says the drug may help prevent life-threatening cytokine storm -- the deadly second phase of COVID-19 where the body's immune system overreacts to fight over the virus -- causing severe damage to the lungs and other organs.
He says patients need to have a confirmed case of COVID-19 and are quarantined at home to be part of the trial.
Lenze's team will interact with patients remotely because they will be quarantined due to having active coronavirus infection. The team plans to recruit 152 patients from Missouri and Illinois. Patients in other states will not be eligible because the team’s physicians are not licensed to provide care in other states.
The quarantined patients will receive home deliveries of medication or inactive placebo, thermometers, automatic blood pressure monitors and fingertip oxygen sensors. In daily interactions with members of the research team — either via phone or computer — the patients will report on their symptoms, their oxygen levels and other vital signs.
Throughout the study, the research team will monitor patients to see whether they are at risk for the worsening illness that often characterizes the second phase of the COVID-19 infection.