From the abstract: > Results > The initial search yielded 839 articles, of which 29 articles met our inclusion criteria. All studies except one were conducted

From the abstract: > Results > The initial search yielded 839 articles, of which 29 articles met our inclusion criteria. All studies except one were conducted on hospitalized patients and evaluated the effects of hydroxychloroquine with or without azithromycin. Among the 29 articles, 3 were randomized controlled trials (RCT), one was a non-randomized trial and 25 were observational studies, including 10 with a critical risk of bias and 15 with a serious or moderate risk of bias. After excluding studies with critical risk of bias, the meta-analysis included 11,932 participants for the hydroxychloroquine group, 8,081 for the hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin group and 12,930 for the control group. Hydroxychloroquine was not significantly associated with mortality: pooled Relative Risk RR=0.83 (95% CI: 0.65-1.06, n=17 studies) for all studies and RR=1.09 (95% CI: 0.97-1.24, n=3 studies) for RCTs. Hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin was associated with an increased mortality: RR=1.27 (95% CI: 1.04-1.54, n=7 studies). We found similar results with a Bayesian meta-analysis. > > Conclusion > Hydroxychloroquine alone was not associated with reduced mortality in hospitalized COVID-19 patients but the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin significantly increased mortality