Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Calcium channel blocker amlodipine besylate therapy is associated with reduced case fatality rate of COVID-19 patients with hypertension

2020; Springer Nature; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/s41421-020-00235-0

2056-5968

Leike Zhang, Yuan Sun, Hao‐Long Zeng, Qingxing Wang, Xiaming Jiang, Wei-juan Shang, Yan Wu, Shufen Li, Yulan Zhang, Zhaonian Hao, Hongbo Chen, Runming Jin, Wei Liu, Hao Li, Ke Peng, Gengfu Xiao,

Heart rate and cardiovascular health

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has now spread to >200 countries posing a global public health concern. Patients with comorbidity, such as hypertension suffer more severe infection with elevated mortality. The development of effective antiviral drugs is in urgent need to treat COVID-19 patients. Here, we report that calcium channel blockers (CCBs), a type of antihypertensive drug that is widely used in clinics, inhibited the post-entry replication events of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro, while no in vitro anti-SARS-CoV-2 effect was observed for the two other major types of antihypertensive drugs, namely, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers. CCB combined with chloroquine showed a significantly enhanced anti-SARS-CoV-2 efficacy. A retrospective clinical investigation on hospitalized COVID-19 patients with hypertension as the only comorbidity revealed that the CCB amlodipine besylate therapy was associated with a decreased case fatality rate. The results from this study suggest that CCB administration to COVID-19 patients with hypertension as the comorbidity might improve the disease outcome.