Salto-Alejandre, SonsolesPalacios-Baena, Zaira RArribas, José RamónBerenguer, JuanCarratalà, JordiJarrín, InmaculadaRyan, PabloMiguel-Montero, Marta deRodríguez-Baño, JesúsPachón, JerónimoCOVID-19@Spain Study Group2023-05-032023-05-032021-12-22http://hdl.handle.net/10668/22040Interferon-β is an attractive drug for repurposing and use in the treatment of COVID-19, based on its in vitro antiviral activity and the encouraging results from clinical trials. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of early interferon-β treatment in patients admitted with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic. This post hoc analysis of a COVID-19@Spain multicenter cohort included 3808 consecutive adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19 from 1 January to 17 March 2020. The primary endpoint was 30-day all-cause mortality, and the main exposure of interest was subcutaneous administration of interferon-β, defined as early if started ≤ 3 days from admission. Multivariate logistic and Cox regression analyses were conducted to identify the associations of different variables with receiving early interferon-β therapy and to assess its impact on 30-day mortality. A propensity score was calculated and used to both control for confounders and perform a matched cohort analysis. Overall, 683 patients (17.9%) received early interferon-β therapy. These patients were more severely ill. Adjusted HR for mortality with early interferon-β was 1.03 (95% CI, 0.82-1.30) in the overall cohort, 0.96 (0.82-1.13) in the PS-matched subcohort, and 0.89 (0.60-1.32) when interferon-β treatment was analyzed as a time-dependent variable. In this multicenter cohort of admitted COVID-19 patients, receiving early interferon-β therapy after hospital admission did not show an association with lower mortality. Whether interferon-β might be useful in the earlier stages of the disease or specific subgroups of patients requires further research.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/COVID-19Interferon-βMortalitySARS-CoV-2TreatmentAgedAged, 80 and overAntiviral AgentsCOVID-19Cohort StudiesFemaleHospitalizationHumansInjections, SubcutaneousInterferon-betaMalePrognosisRetrospective StudiesSARS-CoV-2SpainTime-to-TreatmentTreatment OutcomeCOVID-19 Drug Treatmentresearch article34954640open access10.1016/j.biopha.2021.1125721950-6007PMC8692085https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2021.112572https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8692085/pdf