Glucocorticoid therapy for patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome

This paper is to study the time, course of treatment and efficacy of glucocorticoid therapy in treatment of SARS. Seven SARS patients were treated with glucocorticoid,the methylpredinisone dose was 126 mg/d,and the average course of treatment was 7.8 d. After the glucocorticoid treatment, 2 patients with high fever returned to normal level within 2 d; 4 patients with progressive chest radiographs air space shadow improved from 3 to 5 d and the glucocorticoid was stopped after the air space shadow was absorbed obviously. No respiratory failure occurred in all the 7 patients. It is suggested that glucocorticoid can improve the patients situation and prevent disease progress.