Table1_Efficacy and Safety of Lithium Treatment in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients.docx

At the beginning of the pandemic, we observed that lithium carbonate had a positive effect on the recovery of severely ill patients with COVID-19. Lithium is able to inhibit the replication of several types of viruses, some of which are similar to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, increase the immune response and reduce inflammation by preventing or reducing the cytokine storm. Previously, we published an article with data from six patients with severe COVID-19 infection, where we proposed that lithium carbonate could be used as a potential treatment for COVID-19. Now, we set out to conduct a randomized clinical trial number EudraCT 2020–002008–37 to evaluate the efficacy and safety of lithium treatment in patients infected with severe SARS-CoV-2. We showed that lithium was able to reduce the number of days of hospital and intensive care unit admission as well as the risk of death, reduces inflammatory cytokine levels by preventing cytokine storms, and also reduced the long COVID syndromes. We propose that lithium carbonate can be used to reduce the severity of COVID-19.

在疫情初期，我们观察到碳酸锂对重症COVID-19患者的康复具有积极作用。锂能够抑制多种类型病毒的复制，其中一些与SARS-CoV-2病毒相似，通过预防或减少细胞因子风暴，增强免疫反应并减轻炎症。此前，我们已发表一篇基于六名重症COVID-19患者数据的研究文章，提出碳酸锂可能作为COVID-19的潜在治疗方法。目前，我们着手进行一项随机临床试验（EudraCT 2020–002008–37），以评估锂治疗在重症SARS-CoV-2感染患者中的有效性和安全性。研究表明，锂能够缩短患者住院和重症监护病房的入住天数，降低死亡风险，通过预防细胞因子风暴来减少炎症性细胞因子水平，并减轻长期COVID综合症。我们提出，碳酸锂可用于减轻COVID-19的严重程度。