Researchers compared the outcomes of those treated with fluvoxamine to the outcomes of those given an inactive placebo.
After 15 days, none of the 80 patients who had received the drug experienced serious clinical deterioration. Meanwhile, six of the 72 patients given placebo (8.3%) became seriously ill, with four requiring hospitalization.
The study is published online Nov. 12 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The patients who took fluvoxamine did not develop serious breathing difficulties or require hospitalization for problems with lung function," said the paper's first author, Eric J. Lenze, MD, the Wallace and Lucille Renard Professor of Psychiatry. "Most investigational treatments for COVID-19 have been aimed at the very sickest patients, but it's also important to find therapies that prevent patients from getting sick enough to require supplemental oxygen or to have to go to the hospital. Our study suggests fluvoxamine may help fill that niche."
Fluvoxamine is used commonly to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), social anxiety disorder and depression. It is in a class of drugs known as selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but unlike other SSRIs, fluvoxamine interacts strongly with a protein called the sigma-1 receptor. That receptor also helps regulate the body's inflammatory response.
