Safi Dalia, Khouri Farah, Zareef Rana, Arabi Mariam
Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.
Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon.
Can J Infect Dis Med Microbiol. 2025 Mar 30;2025:4573096. doi: 10.1155/cjid/4573096. eCollection 2025.
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented public health crisis, driven by its rapid global spread and the urgent need for worldwide collaborative interventions to contain it. This urgency spurred the search for therapeutic agents to prevent or manage the infection. Among these, various types of antivirals emerged as a prominent treatment option, supported by a wealth of observational studies and randomized controlled trials. The results from such studies conflict, with some concluding efficacy and others the lack thereof, with variability also occurring depending on the severity of COVID-19 in the studied population. In addition, many agents have been explored using randomized controlled trials-the gold standard in evaluating the efficacy of an intervention-to only a limited degree, with most of the evidence behind their use concluded using observational studies. Thus, the sheer volume of data has made it challenging to resolve inconsistencies and determine true efficacy. Furthermore, there is a paucity in the literature regarding the use of antivirals in the pediatric population infected with COVID-19, with their use being extrapolated from the results of studies done on adult patients. As such, additional trials are needed to solidify the effectiveness of antivirals in managing COVID-19, particularly in the underexplored and especially vulnerable pediatric cardiac patients. Therefore, utilizing the results from randomized controlled trials, this narrative review evaluates the rationale behind the use of antivirals, summarizes the findings from the literature, and concludes with a focused discussion on their application in pediatric cardiac patients.
新冠疫情造成了一场前所未有的公共卫生危机,其全球迅速传播以及迫切需要全球协作干预措施来控制疫情是这场危机的驱动因素。这种紧迫性促使人们寻找预防或控制感染的治疗药物。其中,各类抗病毒药物成为一种突出的治疗选择,大量观察性研究和随机对照试验为此提供了支持。这些研究结果相互矛盾,一些研究得出了疗效结论,而另一些则没有,并且根据所研究人群中新冠病情的严重程度也会出现差异。此外,许多药物仅在有限程度上通过随机对照试验(评估干预措施疗效的金标准)进行了探索,其使用背后的大部分证据是通过观察性研究得出的。因此,大量的数据使得解决不一致性问题并确定真正的疗效具有挑战性。此外,关于在感染新冠的儿科人群中使用抗病毒药物的文献较少,其使用是从针对成年患者的研究结果推断而来的。因此,需要更多试验来巩固抗病毒药物在控制新冠疫情方面的有效性,特别是在研究不足且尤其脆弱的儿科心脏病患者中。因此,本叙述性综述利用随机对照试验的结果,评估了使用抗病毒药物的理论依据,总结了文献中的研究结果,并最后重点讨论了它们在儿科心脏病患者中的应用。