New Version of the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Released
June 01, 2022
The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) has just released a new version of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines. Important updates include:
- New sections that discuss the unique aspects of managing critically ill children with COVID-19 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C): Introduction to Critical Care Management of Children With COVID-19, Oxygenation and Ventilation for Children, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Children, and Hemodynamic Considerations for Children.
- Revised recommendations for antiplatelet therapy in Antithrombotic Therapy in Patients With COVID-19 and a new table that summarizes the data from key clinical trials.
- Revised sections of Critical Care for Adults, including the rationale in Oxygenation and Ventilation for Adults, that incorporate data from recent clinical trials.
- The Corticosteroids section and Table 4a contain new data from clinical trials, including trials that investigated different doses of dexamethasone for the treatment of COVID-19.
- The section on Colchicine now includes results from the COLCOVID trial. After reviewing the results of the trial, the Panel continues to recommend against the use of colchicine for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
- New information on the use of COVID-19 vaccines in patients with cancer and their close contacts in Special Considerations in Adults and Children With Cancer. This section also discusses using tixagevimab plus cilgavimab (Evusheld) as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and the potential drug-drug interactions between ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir (Paxlovid) and certain chemotherapeutic agents.
- Special Considerations in Solid Organ Transplant, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant, and Cellular Immunotherapy Candidates, Donors, and Recipients include vaccination recommendations for potential organ and stem cell donors, and for close contacts of transplant and cellular immunotherapy candidates and recipients. This section also discusses using tixagevimab plus cilgavimab as PrEP in transplant candidates/recipients and the potential drug-drug interactions between ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir and certain immunosuppressants.
For more information on these updates, please see What's New in the Guidelines on the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines website.