Fluvoxamine for COVID, what?

Fluvoxamine is a cheap, generic, oral drug that is classified and used as an antidepressant. That said, recent trials have tested its use as early, at-home treatment for COVID-19 and so far, the results look extremely promising. So promising that an application was recently submitted to the FDA for emergency use authorization as early treatment for COVID-19. I interviewed one of the doctors who filed for that emergency use application for TrialSite News. He also is running one of the largest randomized controlled trials on early treatment for COVID-19, that includes fluvoxamine, so if you are interested in how that is all going, you can watch the interview here.

In a recent blog, I covered a different randomized controlled trial testing fluvoxamine for COVID called the TOGETHER trial. In that, I covered methods, results, any side effects reported, etc., and you can revisit that blog here.  After I wrote and shared that blog, some of my readers wrote me and asked me if I could find someone to talk about it on the podcast. So I looked around, and I found a perfect person.

In a recent episode of Causes or Cures, I chatted with Dr. Eric Lenze, a psychiatrist and clinical trialist at Washington University in St. Louis, who ran one of the randomized controlled trials on fluvoxamine for COVID. His study was published here in JAMA. In this episode, he will discuss what fluvoxamine is, why he and his team decided to study its use against COVID-19, results of the trial and subsequent trials, dosing issues, side effects, concerns about withdrawal and how the drug can help bring an end to the pandemic. I hope you guys tune in to the episode! You can listen to it here, but Causes or Cures is also available on Apple, Spotify and, well, anywhere podcasts are found, I think. ;)

Thanks for reading, gang, and I look forward to your feedback on this Causes or Cures episode. And if you find it interesting, or any of the other podcasts episodes, I always appreciate a share.