# 1407
While there are still unanswered questions regarding the safety of Tamiflu in teenagers and children, at least one study appears to show that deaths are reduced by as much as 80% from flu-related illnesses among the elderly when an antiviral is taken.
This study also indicates that there is some benefit from Tamiflu even if administered beyond the standard 48-hours of infection `window', which is commonly quoted.
Antiviral therapy cuts deaths from severe flu
Reuters Health
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In older adults with a severe bout of the flu, treatment with an antiviral drug such as Tamiflu significantly reduces mortality, even when given 3 to 4 days after symptoms appear, researchers from Canada report based on a "look-back" study.
This study "contributes to the accumulating evidence that, in addition to reducing influenza complications in otherwise healthy adults, (antivirals) have a role in the treatment of more-seriously ill patients," they write in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Dr. Allison McGeer from Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital and colleagues analyzed use of antiviral therapy and outcomes of 327 older adults with laboratory-confirmed influenza severe enough to require admission to the hospital. Roughly one-third of the subjects received antiviral therapy, most commonly Tamiflu (also known as oseltamivir).
According to the investigators, treatment with an antiviral reduced the risk of death within 15 days of symptom onset by about 80 percent.
"One important difference between our study and others is that the patients in our cohort appeared to benefit from antiviral therapy initiated greater than 48 hours after symptom onset," McGeer and colleagues note.
It's possible that co-occurring illnesses rendered some of the patients immunocompromised, which could have delayed clearance of the influenza virus, the investigators suggest. Tests showed that all treated patients were shedding influenza virus immediately prior to treatment, "so that specific antiviral therapy might have been expected to be of benefit," they point out.
The fact that 71 percent of patients with severe flu had been vaccinated against influenza, the researchers add, shows that "life-threatening influenza may still occur in highly vaccinated populations."
SOURCE: Clinical Infectious Diseases, December 15, 2007.
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