Effectiveness of oseltamivir on disease progression and viral RNA shedding in patients with mild pandemic 2009 influenza A H1N1: opportunistic retrospective study of medical charts in China
Editor, I read the recent publication by Yu et al. with a great
interes [1]. Yu et al. reported that "Treatment with oseltamivir was
associated with a significantly reduced development of radiographically
confirmed pneumonia and a shorter duration of fever and viral RNA shedding
[1]." I accepted that the report might lead to this conclusion. However,
is this a reality? As Yu et al. noted, this is a retrospecitive review and
there are several bias (such as case selection for using oseltamivir,
uncontrolled laboratory measurement for viral shedding, unreliability of
data recording, etc.) In addition, if this is a real phenomenon, it can
mean only there is still no present resistance in the studied Chinese
subjects. It should be noted that oseltamivir is already reported for
failure in controlling of infection and reduction of viral shedding [2].
References
1. Hongjie Yu, Qiaohong Liao, Yuan Yuan, Lei Zhou, Nijuan Xiang, Yang
Huai, Xiuhua Guo, Yingdong Zheng, H Rogier van Doorn, Jeremy Farrar,
Zhancheng Gao, Zijian Feng, Yu Wang, and Weizhong Yang. Effectiveness of
oseltamivir on disease progression and viral RNA shedding in patients with
mild pandemic 2009 influenza A H1N1: opportunistic retrospective study of
medical charts in China. BMJ 2010 341:c4779; doi:10.1136/bmj.c4779
2. Mehta T, McGrath E, Bheemreddy S, Salimnia H, Abdel-Haq N, Ang JY, Lum
L, Chandrasekar P, Alangaden GJ.
Detection of Oseltamivir Resistance During Therapy of 2009 H1N1 Influenza
in Immunocompromised Patients: Utility of Cycle Threshold Values of
Qualitative rRT-PCR. J Clin Microbiol. 2010 Sep 15. [Epub ahead of print]
Competing interests:
No competing interests
29 September 2010
professor viroj wiwanitkit
director, physician
Wiwanitkit House, Bangkhae, Bangkok Thailand; visiting professor of Tropical Medicine, Hainan Medica
Rapid Response:
Oseltamivir and viral RNA shedding: a reality?
Editor, I read the recent publication by Yu et al. with a great
interes [1]. Yu et al. reported that "Treatment with oseltamivir was
associated with a significantly reduced development of radiographically
confirmed pneumonia and a shorter duration of fever and viral RNA shedding
[1]." I accepted that the report might lead to this conclusion. However,
is this a reality? As Yu et al. noted, this is a retrospecitive review and
there are several bias (such as case selection for using oseltamivir,
uncontrolled laboratory measurement for viral shedding, unreliability of
data recording, etc.) In addition, if this is a real phenomenon, it can
mean only there is still no present resistance in the studied Chinese
subjects. It should be noted that oseltamivir is already reported for
failure in controlling of infection and reduction of viral shedding [2].
References
1. Hongjie Yu, Qiaohong Liao, Yuan Yuan, Lei Zhou, Nijuan Xiang, Yang
Huai, Xiuhua Guo, Yingdong Zheng, H Rogier van Doorn, Jeremy Farrar,
Zhancheng Gao, Zijian Feng, Yu Wang, and Weizhong Yang. Effectiveness of
oseltamivir on disease progression and viral RNA shedding in patients with
mild pandemic 2009 influenza A H1N1: opportunistic retrospective study of
medical charts in China. BMJ 2010 341:c4779; doi:10.1136/bmj.c4779
2. Mehta T, McGrath E, Bheemreddy S, Salimnia H, Abdel-Haq N, Ang JY, Lum
L, Chandrasekar P, Alangaden GJ.
Detection of Oseltamivir Resistance During Therapy of 2009 H1N1 Influenza
in Immunocompromised Patients: Utility of Cycle Threshold Values of
Qualitative rRT-PCR. J Clin Microbiol. 2010 Sep 15. [Epub ahead of print]
Competing interests: No competing interests