Promising Treatments for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Associated with Covid-19

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) can occur in critically ill people due to COVID-19. These combinations of ARDS and COVID-19 are usually fatal, and the risk increases with age and severity of the disease. The main clinical aspect is the intense shortness of breath and often cannot breathe on their own, requiring mechanical ventilatory support. Treatment includes the administration of oxygen and medications. As a result, the aim of the study was to address the promising treatments for COVID-19-associated ARDS, reporting the main forms of recommendation of therapies such as corticosteroid use, ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO). This study is a systematic review conducted through international articles with English language located in PubMed and VHL in addition to Clinicaltrials.gov. In the study, we found 117 studies that were submitted to eligibility analysis and, subsequently, 59 studies were included and discussed in this study. Recent studies show that corticosteroids used in ARDS with COVID-19 have achieved clinical improvement, especially during mechanical ventilation. In ozone therapy, improvement was found in the pulmonary parenchyma and in the release of plasma cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), lymphocyte typing for CD3, CD4, CD8, HLA-DR, CD45. In HBO, it is a useful alternative in the treatment of the disease since it provided inflammatory relief and facilitated the reversal of hypoxemia. As there is little evidence of damage, the data suggest the use of these promising treatments; however, more studies are needed to prove the efficacy of these therapies.