Question: Remember when there was commotion about ibuprofen and COVID-19? Any updates?

Answer: Yes, I remember! We talked about the hypothesis that ibuprofen and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) might aggravate COVID-19 infection way back in our Q&A of 3/28 #Ibuprofen. And now there’s a new study on the topic that was published in PLOS/Medicine just three days ago, “Adverse outcomes and mortality in users of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2: A Danish nationwide cohort study.” Some good news — study authors found that NSAIDs were NOT associated with any increased risk of death, hospitalization, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation, or renal replacement therapy; NSAIDs do not lead to more severe COVID-19 outcomes! Here’s a very brief synthesis of the study:

Study authors used data from the Danish administrative and health registries to identify people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 between late-February and late-April. Of the individuals who tested positive, the researchers identified those who were NSAID users (defined as having filled a NSAID prescription in the 30 days before a positive test). Researchers then matched NSAID to up to 4 non-users based on propensity score matching (i.e. matched according to similar characteristics like age, race, sex, other comorbidities, and use of other prescription drugs) to compare outcomes over a follow-up period of 30 days (for death) and 14 days (for all other outcomes listed above, including hospitalization). The authors found, “In the matched analyses, treatment with NSAIDs was not associated with 30-day mortality (Relative Risk (RR) 1.02, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.82, p = 0.95; Risk Difference (RD) 0.1%, 95% CI −3.5% to 3.7%, p = 0.95), risk of hospitalization (RR 1.16, 95% CI 0.87 to 1.53, p = 0.31; RD 3.3%, 95% CI −3.4% to 10%, p = 0.33), ICU admission (RR 1.04, 95% CI 0.54 to 2.02, p = 0.90; RD 0.2%, 95% CI −3.0% to 3.4%, p = 0.90), mechanical ventilation (RR 1.14, 95% CI 0.56 to 2.30, p = 0.72; RD 0.5%, 95% CI −2.5% to 3.6%, p = 0.73), or renal replacement therapy (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.24 to 3.09, p = 0.81; RD −0.2%, 95% CI −2.0% to 1.6%, p = 0.81).”