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Comment by DrNuke | Hacker News Reader

Tocilizumab drug in Naples hospital seems promising: «The health of the patient suffering from covid 19, who arrived in critical condition, intubated and treated with the new drug therapy is recovering. Maybe we extubate him because his conditions have improved a lot ». They also say they got confirmation from Chinese colleagues who tested that earlier on 21 cases. The drug is now undergoing trial at Roche.

https://www.corriere.it/video-articoli/2020/03/09/dopo-cina-...

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I'm incredibly ignorant, can someone explain why a drug used to treat arthritis might work against a Coronavirus? I just don't understand the connection/interaction, or why this was even tried originally?

Genuinely looking to learn.

it reduces the immune system reaction inflammatory reaction which can be fatal

The linked video has interesting explanation. Perhaps someone more versed may upload to YT to get a robotraslation to everybody's benefit?

The two doctors in the video say that it interferes with a similar auto-immune reaction that happens at pulmonary level because of the Coronavirus, so that it works.

One of the ways the virus kills the patient is causing a cytokine storm [0][1]. And tocilizumab suppresses one of the cytokines in humans [2].

0: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/02/here-is-w... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_release_syndrome 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocilizumab

"It might be a cytokine storm".

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder. The severe cases who contracted the Coronavirus seem to experience an autoimmune reaction towards otherwise healthy lung tissue.

can someone explain why a drug used to treat arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease and not a "oh I'm old and I've worn down all of my cartilage" disease.

That and some other stuff http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0307/c90000-9665722.html

Chloroquine remains quite promising for the early stages http://news.southcn.com/nfplus/gdjktt/content/2020-03/09/con...

so we're gonna a see a n-therapy to cover the whole span ?

Note this is a last resort move for patients in critical condition.

It would serve well to avoid the collapse of hospitals’ critical units indeed.

cytokines storm in only one of the many ways coronavirus can kill, lungs failure, trachea obstruction from mucus, are others.

If that turns out to be true, it's remarkable how many pathologies are related to our immune systems going haywire.

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