Dr. Marc Siegel on potential new treatments in coronavirus fight
Experimental HIV drug could help COVID-19 patients; insight from Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel.
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Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Monday that an experimental drug typically used to treat HIV and breast cancer may be a promising treatment for the coronavirus.
On Friday, the Daily Mail reported that two coronavirus patients in New York City were moved out of the intensive care unit after taking leronlimab, which is said to calm the immune system's overly aggressive response to the virus that could lead to pneumonia or death. The Daily Mail reported that the patients went from being on ventilators in the ICU to a regular hospital in a matter of days.
"It is actually a very exciting drug that's been used in ten patients around the country," Siegel told host Tucker Carlson. "Because you know what it does? It decreases the inflammation we are seeing when we have a reaction to COVID-19."
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"In other words, people out there should know it's not the virus itself that is causing this pneumonia. It’s an exuberant immune response ... a storm of immune cells. This new drug blocks that, while at the same time revving up your own regular immune response. And it looks very promising at keeping people off of ventilators -- or if they're on ventilators, getting them off ventilators by decreasing this inflammation."
Siegel also noted that N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), a drug generally used to fight severe asthma, is also being used in tandem with the blood thinner Heparin, "to decrease this inflammation or exuberant response in the lungs and it too has shown some effect at our goal here, which is getting people off ventilators or preventing them going on ventilators."
Over the weekend, the Food and Drug Administration instituted an emergency use authorization to treat coronavirus patients with anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, both of which have been touted by President Trump as potential coronavirus treatments.
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Both drugs have shown encouraging signs in small, early tests against the novel coronavirus, but they have yet to be studied during a controlled clinical trial.
"It's been shown in the test tube to fight COVID-19 effectively," Siegel said. "The real question is how early in the game to use it. In other words, it may be that it's best used ... as a prevention, as a prophylactic or early when you first start to see symptoms.
"I think the hydroxychloroquine is more useful earlier on to decrease the amount of virus that is circulating and causing the damage."
Fox News' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.