Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jun 19.
doi: 10.1007/s00508-025-02552-4. Online ahead of print.

Efficacy and safety of imatinib in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Le Li  1   2 , Chengxiao Zhao  1   3 , Siyuan Hou  4
Affiliations

Efficacy and safety of imatinib in patients with COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Le Li et al. Wien Klin Wochenschr. .

Abstract

Objective: To inform treatment decisions in clinical practice, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the efficacy and safety of imatinib in patients with COVID-19.

Methods: A comprehensive systematic search was conducted across multiple electronic databases to identify relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing imatinib with placebo in patients with COVID-19. A meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager software version 5.3 and followed the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.

Results: The analysis included 4 studies with a total of 717 patients. The risk ratio (RR) for 28-day mortality in the imatinib group compared to the placebo group was 0.79 (95% confidence interval. CI 0.51-1.21; p = 0.28). There were no statistically significant differences in the duration of oxygen supplementation (MD = -0.13, 95% CI -2.57-2.31; p = 0.92) or the number of ventilator-free days (MD = 4.71, 95% CI -6.97-16.38; p = 0.43). Imatinib treatment did not significantly reduce the duration of hospital or intensive care unit (ICU) stay. Additionally, there was no significant difference between imatinib and placebo in the risk of any adverse events (AEs) or serious AEs.

Conclusion: Imatinib did not significantly improve clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Future research should consider subgroup analyses based on the biological heterogeneity of COVID-19-associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) or the concurrent use of interleukin 6 (IL-6) receptor inhibitors to identify patient populations that may benefit from imatinib treatment.

Keywords: COVID-19; Efficacy; Imatinib; Meta-analysis; Safety.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: L. Li,C. Zhao and S. Hou declare that they have no competing interests. Ethical standards: For this article no studies with human participants or animals were performed by any of the authors. All studies mentioned were in accordance with the ethical standards indicated in each case.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Cucinotta D, Vanelli M. WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic. Acta Biomed. 2020;91(1):157–60. - PubMed - PMC
    1. Alimohamadi Y, Tola HH, Abbasi-Ghahramanloo A, Janani M, Sepandi M. Case fatality rate of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Prev Med Hyg. 2021;62(2):E311–E20. - PubMed - PMC
    1. Lai CC, Hsu CK, Yen MY, Lee PI, Ko WC, Hsueh PR. Long COVID: an inevitable sequela of SARS-coV‑2 infection. J Microbiol Immunol Infect. 2023;56(1):1–9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. COVID-ICU Group on behalf of the REVA Network and the COVID-ICU Investigators.. Clinical characteristics and day-90 outcomes of 4244 critically ill adults with COVID-19: a prospective cohort study. Intensive Care Med. 2021;47(1):60–73. - DOI
    1. Meyer NJ, Gattinoni L, Calfee CS. Acute respiratory distress syndrome. Lancet. 2021;398(10300):622–37. - DOI - PubMed - PMC

LinkOut - more resources