| Bias | Author's judgement | Support for judgement |
| Randomization |
Some concerns |
Quote: "Once patients passed the inclusion and exclusion criteria and signed the consent form, they were randomly assigned to either the control arm or the treatment arm in a 1:1 ratio using a computer-generated randomization plan. Block randomization with a block size of 2 was used." Comment: No information on allocation sequence concealment was provided. |
| Deviations from intervention |
Some concerns |
Comment: Unblinded study.
No participant cross-over. No information on administration of co-interventions of interest reported: biologics, anticoagulants. Antivirals (lopinaivr/ritonavir) and corticosteroids were reported. Intention-to-treat analysis was used. |
| Missing outcome data |
Low |
Comment: 70 randomized, 66 analyzed. Data unavailable for >5% of population. Reason: "Randomized in error (met exclusion/inclusion criteria). All missing data occurred due to documented reasons unrelated to the outcome. Risk assessed to be low for outcomes: Mortality. Incidence of recovery. Serious adverse events |
| Measurement of the outcome |
Low |
Quote: "The investigator,
outcome assessor and data analyser were masked." Risk assessed to be low for the outcomes: Mortality. Incidence of recovery. Serious adverse events |
| Selection of the reported results |
Some concerns |
Comment: No protocol or statistical analysis plan were available. Risk assessed to be some concerns for the outcomes: Mortality. Incidence of recovery. Serious adverse events |
| Overall risk of bias |
Some concerns |