Potential Effect of Colchicine in the Prevention of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) In Patients with Covid-19 Infection

Abstract

This work presents the theoretical basis for the use of Colchicine in the prevention of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) associated with COVID-19 infection. Several reports show that the common final event that increases mortality from COVID-19 infection is ARDS, which occurs due to an unmodulated inflammatory response, which leads to respiratory failure and death. For many years we have used colchicine, anti-inflammatory and antimitotic, for the management of symptoms associated with modeling disease, iatrogenic allogenosis, or Schoenfeld’s syndrome, obtaining control of the inflammatory or autoimmune process that occurred in these patients. Colchicine is an alkaloid extracted from the plant "Genus Colchicum" and works by modulating the inflammatory response in patients with gout, gouty arthritis and familial Mediterranean fever. We observed that a group of patients consuming colchicine, 5 patients, diagnosed with COVID-19 infection and within the age group with the highest risk, presented only minor symptoms and did not develop ARDS. This clinical observation motivates us to describe as an incidental finding the possible prophylactic effect of colchicine in the prevention of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in patients with COVID-19 infection. Early detection of patients who may have ARDS and the use of colchicine, a very low-cost drug, in these patients may decrease the mortality associated with COVID-19 infection