Evidence is urgently needed on whether corticosteroid therapy is appropriate for treating patients infected with the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) who are severely ill, pulmonary and critical-care clinicians say.

Treating doctors in Wuhan say they face a dilemma because, while steroids may reduce inflammatory lung injury, the medication may delay viral clearance.

Like SARS and MERS before it, 2019-nCoV induces a cytokine storm that suggests corticosteroids would be appropriate, they say.

However, a 2004 review of outcomes of SARS and MERS patients given corticosteroids showed the therapy delays viral clearance and did not reduce mortality, doctors from the Jin Yintan Hospital, Wuhan, and Capital Medical University, Beijing, write in The Lancet.