Use of siltuximab in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia requiring ventilatory support

Giuseppe Gritti; Federico Raimondi; Diego Ripamonti; Ivano Riva; Francesco Landi; Leonardo Alborghetti; Marco Frigeni; Marianna Damiani; Caterina Micò; Stefano Fagiuoli; Roberto Cosentini; Ferdinando Luca Lorini; Fabrizio Fabretti; Jonathan Morgan; Benjamin M.J. Owens; Karan Kanhai; Jim Cowburn; Marco Rizzi; Fabiano Di Marco; Alessandro Rambaldi

(which was not peer-reviewed) The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10. 1101 Methods This investigator-led study retrospectively analysed data collected on patients with pulmonary infection by SARS-CoV-2 (confirmed by clinical and radiological assessment) and ARDS (in accordance with the Berlin 2012 criteria) (Definition Task Force ARDS, 2012) who were admitted to the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo, Italy. Patients were treated according to the hospital standard of care, and received treatment with siltuximab administered intravenously at a dose of 11 mg/kg/day over 1 hour. A second dose could be administered at the physician's discretion, as part of a compassionate-use program approved by the Hospital Ethics Board. Data analysis was completed on 27 March 2020, when all patients had at least 7 days of follow-up after siltuximab administration.