Mount Sinai study finds inflammatory markers that may predict response in some patients to Covid immunotherapies
John Mascarenhas, MD, discusses a study identifying inflammatory markers that may predict which COVID-19 patients are more likely to respond to therapies like pacritinib, an anti-cancer drug. He said, “While we identified subtypes of COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammation who could actually benefit from pacritinib, our study failed to show superiority of pacritinib to standard-of-care management of hospitalized COVID-19 adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome for a variety of reasons. We believe one reason may have been that the study was limited by the early dropout of participants who actually improved with this agent and therefore did not feel it was necessary to continue treatment and these patients were not captured as responders in the analysis.”