Effects of Morphine and Fentanyl on Patients with COVID-19

Sustained inflammation has been observed in the majority of severe COVID-19 cases. The impact of choice of opioid on perioperative inflammatory processes has not been assessed in the clinical setting.

Patients with novel coronavirus (COVID-19) who referred to Masih Daneshvari and Noor-Afshar Hospitals in Tehran were included in the study after providing full explanations and obtaining written consent. Patients were then randomly divided into three groups: morphine, fentanyl and control. Patients in the morphine group received 3 mg of morphine intravenously every 6 hours for 5 days, whereas in the fentanyl group, 1.5 mcg / kg / h of fentanyl was infused for 2 hours on 5 consecutive days. The results were evaluated based on the design of the questionnaire and its completion using t-test and SPSS25 software.

A total of 127 participants responded to the survey between 20 April and 20 June 2020, of whom 90 (70.86%) with the average age 65.2 years, provided complete data on variables included in the present analyses. 53 (58.33%) of all individuals were men and 37 (41.12%) were women. Accordingly, 22 (24.4%) patients had a history of hypertension. However, diabetes with 16 (17.77%) cases and kidney diseases with 12 (13.33%), were the next most common underlying diseases. Evaluation of patients' clinical, laboratory and inflammatory conditions at different time intervals in both fentanyl and morphine groups did not show significant changes between these groups and the patients in the control one.

The results of this study did not show any significant change in the use of fentanyl and morphine compared to patients with COVID 19. This may be due to the use of these drugs in the viral phase of the disease. The use of morphine and fentanyl in the viral phase of COVID 19 disease do not show significant benefits.