The research team from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Centre in the US, picked 10 people (six men; four women) who developed COVID-19 infection, all of whom happened to have been taking famotidine during their illness.
The severity of five cardinal symptoms–cough; shortness of breath; fatigue; headache and loss of taste/smell as well as general unwellness–was measured using a version of a 4-point scale normally applied to assess the severity of cancer symptoms (ECOG PS).
All started taking famotidine when they were feeling very poorly with COVID-19, the symptoms of which had been going on from two up to 26 days at that point.
The most frequently used dose was 80 mg taken three times a day, with the average treatment period lasting 11 days, but ranging from five to 21 days.
The findings showed that all 10 patients said that symptoms quickly improved within 24-48 hours of starting famotidine and had mostly cleared up after 14 days.
Improvement was evident across all symptom categories assessed, but respiratory symptoms, such as cough and shortness of breath, improved more rapidly than systemic symptoms, such as fatigue, the study said.
