2.2. Study arms and treatment plans
After carefully reviewing the COVID-19 patients records based on the hospital information database, and finally considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 183 patients were divided into two groups; 109 patients have received standard treatment and 74 patients have received IVIG (Figure1).
In this study, epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory data, management, and outcomes of patients were obtained. Finally, the outcomes include mortality rate, duration of hospitalization, mechanical ventilation and ICU length of stay were analyzed and compared between two groups.
The standard treatment group regimen was oral Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) 400 mg daily for 5 days plus Atazanavir/Ritonavir (300/100) daily for ten days. IVIG treatment was divided into three groups of low, medium and high dose (0.25, 0.5 and 1 gr/ kg) during 3-5 consecutive days in addition to standard care.