To investigate the role of glucocorticoids in the treatment of the patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia (corona virus disease-2019, COVID-19).

An exploratory study was performed on the 51 patients with COVID-19 treated in our hospital from January 24 to March 5, 2020. We fully evaluated the risk of the patients developing into severe/critically severe types according to the patients′fever, inflammation index, and chest CT, etc. The patients were divided into a low-risk group (n=19), a medium-risk group (n=21) and a high-risk group (n=11). The high-risk group was given early, small dose and short course of glucocorticoids treatment.

There was no statistical difference in the gender and age composition among the three groups (P>0.05), and there was no statistical difference in the average hospitalization days and the average number of days of negative nucleic acid transfer among the three groups, either (P>0.05). However, there was significant difference in C-reactive protein (CRP) between the high-risk group and the low-risk group (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in interleukin-6 (IL-6) between the high-risk group and the middle-risk group (P=0.552), but there was significant difference between the two groups and the low-risk group (P<0.05). On patients′admission, the total lymphocytes in the peripheral blood in the high-risk group and the middle-risk group were different from that of the low risk group (P<0.05). However, at patients′discharge, there was no statistical difference in the total lymphocytes in the high-risk group (P>0.05) compared with that on admission.

The early use of small dose and short course of glucocorticoids in the patients with common type of COVID-19 has the possibility of rapidly inhibiting the inflammatory response and blocking the development into severe/critical types, which may have certain clinical application values.