Average rating: | Rated 1.5 of 5. |
Level of importance: | Rated 1 of 5. |
Level of validity: | Rated 1 of 5. |
Level of completeness: | Rated 1 of 5. |
Level of comprehensibility: | Rated 3 of 5. |
Competing interests: | None |
Keywords: | Inhalation, covid-19, VAP, ICU, SARS-CoV-2, Silver, Nanoparticles, Treatment, Pneumonia |
A peer review should focus on the content but here it is necessary to comment on the single author of this preprint. This is his first article or preprint that has anything to do with biology or chemistry. The last article he published dates from more than 15 years ago and deals with theoretical physics. He has no academic affiliation but he is CEO of two companies. The one he uses to sign the article does not seem to have any existence beyond his profile (according to a Google search). The other one, Biovo technologies, develops/sells “groundbreaking medical devices […]” and its “premier product line – Airway Medix – presents a line of disposable respiratory devices used for mechanically ventilated patients.” In spite of this, there is no conflict of interest declaration in the preprint.
The article itself makes the case for starting clinical trials consisting in injecting large amounts of silver nanoparticles by inhalation in Covid-19 patients. There is no preclinical work to support this. The in vitro work, from the literature, is on other viruses, and is of poor quality, often in completely artificial and unrealistic models. There is simply no reliable evidence or efficacy model to support exploring this route. The model – if I can use this word - shown in figure 5 is completely naïve.
In general, and particularly in a time of pandemic, sharing articles that make unsupported recommendations for therapeutic interventions is highly problematic. Whilst preprint servers have a role to play in accelerating the circulation of information, there is also a risk that they contribute to amplify bad science noise (at best) or even cause harm (at worst).