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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Hepatobiliary Diseases
Volume 12 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1494248
Ursodeoxycholic Acid Relieves Clinical Severity of COVID-19 in Patients with Chronic Liver Diseases
Provisionally accepted- Department of Infectious Diseases, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
The potential effect of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) on the clinical outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with chronic liver diseases has been a subject of ongoing debate since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2019. This study aims to investigate the effect of UDCA on the prognosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with chronic liver diseases.A total of 926 patients with chronic liver diseases who contracted their first SARS-CoV-2 infection during December 2022 to January 2023, were included in this study.Participants were divided into two groups based on the use of UDCA: the UDCA cohort (n=329) and the non-UDCA cohort (n=597). After performing a 1:1 age-and sex-matching, the analysis proceeded with 309 patients from each group for further evaluation.In the UDCA-treated cohort, the incidence of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections was significantly higher, with 30.1% of patients affected, compared to 6.47% in the non-UDCA group (p < 0.0001). Multivariable analysis identified UDCA as a protective factor against symptomatic infections, yielding an odds ratio (OR) of 4.77 (95% CI: 2.70-8.44, p < 0.001). Furthermore, age over 50 was found to be a risk factor for asymptomatic infections in the UDCA cohort, with an adjusted OR of 1.51 (95% CI: 1.01-2.24, p = 0.05).The study suggests that UDCA therapy may improve clinical outcomes in patients with chronic liver diseases patients who are infected with SARS-CoV-2, highlighting its potential role in improving prognosis within this vulnerable population. However, further research is required to validate these findings and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying UDCA's protective effect.
Keywords: Chronic Liver Diseases, SARS-CoV-2, Ursodeoxycholic Acid, prognosis, clinical outcomes
Received: 10 Sep 2024; Accepted: 24 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Zhang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jiming Zhang, Department of Infectious Diseases, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Jinyu Wang, Department of Infectious Diseases, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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