Communicable E63: Does oseltamivir harm critically ill patients? The REMAP-CAP results

At the Critical Care Reviews meeting in Belfast in June this year, REMAP-CAP investigators presented results suggesting that oseltamivir may be harmful in critically ill patients with influenza, upending a long-standing clinical practice in intensive care [1]. In this fourth collaboration between SIDP’s Breakpoints and ESCMID’s Communicable podcasts, hosts Erin McCreary and Josh Davis are joined by Steve Webb (Monash University), senior REMAP-CAP investigator and 'godfather of adaptive trial design', and Steve Tong (University of Melbourne), esteemed clinical trialist and friend of both podcasts. Together, they walk through the trial domain’s design, outcomes and results, also highlighting how these findings demonstrate the importance and clinical impact of randomised clinical trials. At the time of this episode recording in August, the results discussed were available as a preprint version [1].  Resources REMAP-CAP: A Randomised, Embedded, Multi-factorial, Adaptive Platform Trial for Community-Acquired Pneumonia, https://www.remapcap.org/  References Murthy S, et al. Oseltamivir for Critically Ill Patients with Influenza: A Randomised Trial. Lancet 2026. Preprint http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.7172531