Early, low-dose and short-term application of corticosteroid treatment in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia: single-center experience from Wuhan, China

Yin Wang; Weiwei Jiang; Qi He; Cheng Wang; Baoju Wang; Pan Zhou; Nianguo Dong; Qiaoxia Tong

In addition to the timing of treatment, it is also important to master the treatment duration and choose appropriate corticosteroid formulations and dosage. The basic principles of corticosteroid formulations selection lie in the following two aspects: a short half-life and strong penetrating ability. The corticosteroid formulation used in our cohort was methylprednisolone, a median effect corticosteroid with a half-life of 12-36, which has been proved to be associated with a better intensity of immunosuppression [17] . In our experience, the dosage, duration and route of methylprednisolone administration was 1-2mg/kg/d for 5-7 days via intravenous injection. Nevertheless, the specific dosage and duration for individual patient was determined on the clinical manifestations, leucocyte and lymphocyte count, inflammatory index and lesion range.