" Hydroxyurea is a monohydroxyl-substituted urea (hydroxycarbamate) antimetabolite. Similar to other antimetabolite anti-cancer drugs, it acts by disrupting the DNA replication process of dividing cancer cells in the body. Hydroxyurea selectively inhibits ribonucleoside diphosphate reductase, an enzyme required to convert ribonucleoside diphosphates into deoxyribonucleoside diphosphates, thereby preventing cells from leaving the G1/S phase of the cell cycle. This agent also exhibits radiosensitizing activity by maintaining cells in the radiation-sensitive G1 phase and interfering with DNA repair "
Hydroxyurea in use as an inhibitor of human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 replication. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/266/5186/801
Hydroxyurea therapy in children severely affected with sickle cell disease https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(96)70335-9/pdf
New insights into the antiviral effects of chloroquine https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(06)70361-9/fulltext
Complementary Antiviral Efficacy of Hydroxyurea and Protease Inhibitors in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Dendritic Cells and Lymphocytes
Article Complementary Antiviral Efficacy of Hydroxyurea and Protease...
Seems to me Hydroxyurea could be effective therapeutic agent against COVID-19.
What is your opinion?
Hydroxyurea Potentiates the Antiherpesvirus Activities of Purine and Pyrimidine Nucleoside and Nucleoside Phosphonate Analogs
https://aac.asm.org/content/aac/43/12/2885.full.pdf
I doubt it.
The phonetic similarity to hydroxyquinoline is accidental and not significant.
Samir
Hydroxyurea is indeed now commonly used in patients with sickle cell disease ans also with patients with polycythemia vera. However, there is no relationship between its effects in these two diseases and a potential antiviral activity.
I doubt very much that it could be a potential drug to fight Covid-19 infection. Besides, initial hope that may have been raised for chloroquine in the context of Covid infection is fading away now that the results of controlled large scale studies are known.
Results of the first large controlled study of the effect of Chloroquine or Hydroxychloroquine on Covid-19 infection (96,032 patients in 671 hospitals on 6 continents). Treatment was given no later than 48hrs after diagnosis. Mortality:control group (9·3%), hydroxychloroquine (18·0%), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (23·8%), chloroquine (16·4%), and chloroquine with a macrolide (22·2%). De-novo ventricular arrhythmia: control group (0·3%), hydroxychloroquine (6·1%), hydroxychloroquine with a macrolide (8·1%), chloroquine (4·3%), and chloroquine with a macrolide (6·5%). No further comment.
Lancet, May 22, 2020, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31180-6
"On the HIV/AIDS front, chloroquine (250 mg twice daily) has been administered to HIV-1-infected patients with baseline viral loads over 50 000 copies per mL, in combination with lamivudine (150 mg twice daily) and hydroxyurea (500 mg twice daily) in an ongoing clinical trial in India.
Ten out of 18 volunteers had an undetectable viral load at week 24.
The median drop in viral load was more than 2·0 log,
more than the median 1·5 log drop seen with a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) and hydroxyurea alone."
Hello
Given the weak evidence available, larger controlled trials are needed to more thoroughly assess if hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine have a clinical benefit in COVID-19.
It is one of the possibilities (Hydroxyurea) that I and colleagues would like to research, within a specific context. I think this can be a path, not due to HU anti-viral effects, but because of their actions on leukocytes and erythrocytes.
In the case of chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HQ), meta-analysis of data obtained from clinical trials, published by Lancet, was very well conducted. However, I understand that these results do not constitute the absolute truth about the therapeutic potential of CQ and HQ in COVID 19. In my opinion, the message of the article is "be careful with the clinical use of these drugs" instead of "these drugs do not have therapeutic potential in COVID 19 ".
This is a very interesting hypothesis. Unless proven by controlled trials, it is simply a novel hypothesis.
Samir
Recommend share
I agree with you Dr. Samir K Ballas . In any case, I would encourage Popov to make these investigations. I think the literature brings some results that support this attempt.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Medicine
- Epi
- Age Groups
- Children