Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent use may not be associated with mortality of coronavirus disease 19

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been widely used in patients with respiratory infection, but their safety in coronavirus disease 19 (Covid-19) patients has not been fully investigated. We evaluated an association between NSAID use and outcomes of Covid-19. This study was a retrospective observational cohort study based on insurance benefit claims sent to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service of Korea by May 15, 2020. These claims comprised all Covid-19-tested cases and history of medical service use for the past 3 years in these patients. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality, and the secondary outcome was need for ventilator care. Among 7590 patients diagnosed with Covid-19, two distinct cohorts were generated based on NSAID or acetaminophen prescription within 2 weeks before Covid-19 diagnosis. A total of 398 patients was prescribed NSAIDs, and 2365 patients were prescribed acetaminophen. After propensity score matching, 397 pairs of data set were generated, and all-cause mortality of the NSAIDs group showed no significant difference compared with the acetaminophen group (4.0% vs. 3.0%; hazard ratio [HR], 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63-2.88; P = 0.46). The rate of ventilator care also did not show significantly different results between the two groups (2.0% vs. 1.3%; HR, 1.60; 95% CI 0.53-5.30; P = 0.42). Use of NSAIDs was not associated with mortality or ventilator care in Covid-19 patients. NSAIDs may be safely used to relieve symptoms in patients with suspicion of Covid-19. In December 2019, a major outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2) in Wuhan City, China, was first reported. It was later characterized as coronavirus disease 19 (Covid-19) and has become a global threatening disease with more than 6,000,000 confirmed cases worldwide as of June 2020 1 . By then, more than 11,629 cases of Covid-19 had been diagnosed, and 273 deaths had been reported throughout Korea. Based on this, the government of Korea decided to share the world's first de-identified Covid-19 nationwide patient data collected from the Korean National Health Insurance System for the purpose of investigation. The primary site of infection in Covid-19 is the respiratory system. However, epidemiologic reports indicated that mortality of Covid-19 was much higher in patients with cardiovascular disease 2 , and the most serious complications of Covid-19 are those involving cardiovascular and respiratory systems, as well as sepsis 3, 4 . Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have long been widely used for symptomatic relief of infected patients by controlling pain, fever, and inflammation, although safety concerns remain regarding harmful effects on the cardiovascular system 5 . Moreover, NSAID treatment was associated with pulmonary complication in patients with pneumonia 6 . The association between NSAID use and adverse outcome of Covid-19 has been previously evaluated, but limited..