Table 1.

Included clinical trial studies and baseline characteristics among COVID-19 patients treated by IFN-β

Author	Country	Mean age ± SD	Sex (male %)	Type of study	N of patients	Study groups		Treatment onset from symptom onset	Stage of disease	ICU admission
						Intervention	control
										Intervention/control
Rahmani et al. (2020)	Iran	60 (47–73)	59%	Open-label randomized clinical trial	66	IFN β-1b	Standard care (lopinavir/ritonavir or atazanavir/ritonavir plus hydroxychloroquine for 7–10 days)	Not reported	Severe	42.42% vs. 66.66%
Dastan et al. (2020)	Iran	58.55 ± 13.43	75%	Prospective non-controlled trial	20	IFN-β-1a + hydroxychloroquine (200 mg P.O. BID) and lopinavir/ritonavir (200/50 mg P.O.; two tablets QID) for 5 days	Non-controlled trial	6.5 ± 2.8 days	Severe	Non-controlled
Monfared, et al. (2020)	Iran	IFN: 56.0 ± 16 Control: 59.5 ± 14	54.3%	Open-label randomized clinical trial	81 (42 in the IFN and 39 in the control group)	IFN-β-1a + Hydroxychloroquine (400 mg BD in first day and then 200 mg BD) plus lopinavir/ritonavir 155(400 /100 mg BD) or atazanavir/ritonavir (300/100 mg daily) for 7-10 days+ 35.7% of patients received intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG)+ 61.9% of patients received corticosteroids	Hydroxychloroquine (400 mg BD in first day and then 200 mg BD) plus lopinavir/ritonavir (400/100 mg BD) or atazanavir/ritonavir (300/100 mg daily) for 7–10 days. + 25.6% of patients received intravenous immunoglobulin(IVIG)+ 43.6% of patients received corticosteroids	10 days	Severe	45.23% vs 58.97%
Payandemehr, et al. (2020)	Iran	55.5	60%	Investigator initiated, open-label, single-arm clinical trial	20	Not reported	hydroxychloroquine (200 mg twice daily), lopinavir/ritonavir (200/50mg four times daily), oseltamivir (75 mg, twice daily) and ribavirin (1200 mg twice daily)	<7 days	Moderate to severe symptoms	10%
Fan-Ngai Hung et al. (2020)	Hong Kong	52	54%	Multileft RCT	127(2:1)	IFN-β-1b + lopinavir 400 mg and ritonavir 100 mg every 12 h, ribavirin 400 mg every 12 h	Lopinavir 400 mg and ritonavir 100 mg every 12 h	5 days	Hospitalized (severe)	Time to early warning score of 0, days 4.0/8.0 (p=0.001)