Introduction
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused
by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It was
characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11
March 2020 [1]. Although the disease is not severe in most patients
[2], it may progress to a serious illness and hospitalization
particularly in the elderly and those with underlying medical problems
like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases,
and cancer [3].
There is not yet any approved drug or vaccine to treat COVID-19 and
treatment is principally supportive [4]. However, medications
approved for other viral diseases such as Ebola, HIV and influenza are
being experimentally applied against COVID-19 [5, 6]. The WHO
recommends to include confirmed cases of COVD-19 to a global clinical
trial (SOLIDARITY) in which patients receive standard care or one of
four recommended treatments. The treatment arms in SOLIDARITY are
remdesivir, chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir, or
lopinavir/ritonavir plus interferon beta-1a [7]. These regimens
specifically those which include HIV protease inhibitors, may have
complex drug-drug interactions (DDIs).
Besides WHO-recommended treatments, some other medications are being
investigated as probable effective therapies against COVID-19. It is
estimated that as many as 800 clinical trials are being planned or
performed worldwide [5]. Meanwhile the scientists and clinicians are
evaluating different therapies in order to discover the most effective
treatments for COVID-19, they should also consider developing data on
potential adverse effects and DDIs [8]. Because the medications for
management of the wide spectrum of clinical symptoms of COVID-19 and/or
underlying medical comorbidities may interact with the main treatments
[9]. Some charts have been developed to predict drug interactions
between experimental COVID-19 therapies and other medications [10].
However, data on potential DDIs (pDDIs) in COVID-19 patients in real
practice is not available. We designed current study to investigate
pDDIs and their predictors in hospitalized COVID-19 patients by
reviewing their medical charts.