Tocilizumab versus sarilumab among adults hospitalised with COVID-19: target trial emulation across England and Scotland
Bang Zheng, Amanj Kurdi, Alain Amstutz, Amelia Green, Emily Herrett, John Tazare, Qing Wen, Viyaasan Mahalingasivam, Rebecca Smith, Brian MacKenna, Amir Mehrkar, Seb Bacon, Ben Goldacre, Chris Robertson, Sir Aziz Sheikh, Laurie Tomlinson · 2026
Read Tocilizumab versus sarilumab among adults hospitalised with COVID-19: target trial emulation across England and Scotland by Bang Zheng, Amanj Kurdi, Alain Amstutz, Amelia Green, Emily Herrett, John Tazare, Qing Wen, Viyaasan Mahalingasivam, Rebecca Smith, Brian MacKenna, Amir Mehrkar, Seb Bacon, Ben Goldacre, Chris Robertson, Sir Aziz Sheikh, Laurie Tomlinson (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13376390.txt.
Description
A large British research team compares two drugs, tocilizumab and sarilumab, for adults in hospital with COVID-19. Both drugs block a signal protein that fuels harmful inflammation. Guidelines around the world disagreed on the pair, and direct comparisons were scarce, so the team used health records from England and Scotland to mimic a trial.
Records covered more than ten thousand patients treated in 2021 and 2022, when both drugs were in wide use. Death rates within twenty-eight days were nearly the same for the two drugs in both countries. Time to leave hospital also matched, and no patient group clearly did better on one drug. The authors conclude either drug is a fair choice for such patients.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Bang Zheng, Amanj Kurdi, Alain Amstutz, Amelia Green, Emily Herrett, John Tazare, Qing Wen, Viyaasan Mahalingasivam, Rebecca Smith, Brian MacKenna, Amir Mehrkar, Seb Bacon, Ben Goldacre, Chris Robertson, Sir Aziz Sheikh, Laurie Tomlinson |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 39 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |