Intravenous Vitamin C for Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19: Two Harmonized Randomized Clinical Trials

Area of Science:

• Critical Care Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Nutritional Science

Background:

• The efficacy of vitamin C in treating COVID-19 remains uncertain.
• Hospitalized patients with COVID-19 may benefit from vitamin C supplementation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine if intravenous vitamin C improves outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
• To assess the impact of vitamin C on organ support-free days and survival.

Main Methods:

• Two harmonized randomized clinical trials involving critically ill and non-critically ill COVID-19 patients.
• Intravenous vitamin C or placebo administered every 6 hours for 96 hours.
• Primary outcome: composite of organ support-free days and hospital survival.

Main Results:

• Critically ill patients receiving vitamin C had a median of 7 organ support-free days vs. 10 in the control group (OR, 0.88).
• Non-critically ill patients had a median of 22 organ support-free days in both groups (OR, 0.80).
• Survival to discharge was 61.9% with vitamin C vs. 64.6% for controls in critically ill patients; 85.1% vs. 86.6% in non-critically ill patients.

Conclusions:

• Vitamin C demonstrated a low probability of improving the composite outcome in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
• The study suggests vitamin C is unlikely to be beneficial for this patient population.
• Further research may be warranted to explore specific subgroups or alternative therapeutic strategies.