RESUMO
Mefenamic acid is a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug exhibiting a wide range of antiinflammatory, antipyretic, analgesic and probable antiviral activities. The present study evaluated the efficacy of treatment with mefenamic acid combined with standard medical care vs. standard medical care plus a placebo in ambulatory patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19; nasal/oropharyngeal swabs reverse transcriptionPCR test results positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). The present study is a phase II prospective, twoarm, parallelgroup, randomized, doubleblind placebocontrolled clinical trial which analyzed 36 patients. Two aspects were evaluated during the 14day followup period: i) The time for reaching a patient acceptable symptom state (PASS), and ii) the last day of each COVID19 symptom presentation. Adverse effects were evaluated. The clinical severity for all the patients in the study was mild (88.9%) and moderate (11.1%). The control (placebo) group achieved PASS on day 8.0±1.3, compared with day 4.4±0.8 in the mefenamic acid group (P=0.020, KaplanMeier analyses using logrank tests). Patients that received mefenamic acid plus standard medical care had a ~16fold higher probability of achieving PASS on day 8 (adjusted RR, 15.57; 95% CI, 1.22198.71; P=0.035), compared with the placebo plus standard medical care group. All symptoms lasted for fewer days in the mefenamic acid group, compared with the placebo group; however, only the symptoms of headache (P=0.008), retroorbital eye pain (P=0.049), and sore throat (P=0.029) exhibited statistically significant differences. The experimental treatment produced no severe adverse effects. On the whole, the present study demonstrates that the administration of mefenamic acid markedly reduced the symptomatology and time to reach PASS in ambulatory patients with COVID19. Due to its probable antiviral effects and potent antiinflammatory mechanisms, mefenamic acid may prove to be useful in the treatment of COVID19, in combination with other drugs, including the new antivirals (remdesivir, molnupiravir, or favipiravir). However, future studies are also required to confirm these findings.