Candidate treatments for long COVID: a narrative review of expert and patient-driven priorities - PubMed
6 hours ago
- #treatment options
- #research prioritization
- #long COVID
- Objective: To map evidence for candidate treatments for long COVID prioritized by clinicians and patients.
- Study design: Narrative review using pragmatic methods, stakeholder input, and monthly evidence updates.
- Data sources: Candidate treatments identified via database and trial registry searches, ranked by surveys.
- Top 14 interventions included low-dose naltrexone, antivirals, metformin, nicotine, and others.
- Six interventions had long-COVID-specific RCT evidence; others relied on indirect or low-certainty data.
- Evidence certainty was mostly low to very low, with varying safety/feasibility.
- Conclusion: Prioritized treatments show biological plausibility and feasibility for clinical trials.
- No direct evidence for clinical recommendations; focus on rigorous testing in trials.
- Keywords: living evidence, long COVID, narrative review, research prioritization.