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Donated plasma benefits COVID-19 patients in small US study
Patients with severe COVID-19 given plasma from someone who recovered from the disease were more likely to stabilize or need less oxygen support than other similar hospital patients.
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One of the Britain's first recovered COVID-19 patients, Adam Drew, donates convalescent plasma by plasmapheresis, to help with treatment of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, at Tooting Blood Donor Centre, in Tooting, London, Britain, on April 25, 2020. (NHSBT via REUTERS /Kirsty Hamilton)
P
atients with severe COVID-19 given plasma from someone who recovered from the disease were more likely to stabilize or need less oxygen support than other similar hospital patients, according to results of a small US study released on Friday.
The study showed a trend toward better survival rates, but the number of patients was small and the results cannot be interpreted as applying to patients on mechanical ventilators, researchers at New York's Mt. Sinai Medical Center said.
Mt. Sinai analyzed outcomes for 39 hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 who received convalescent plasma transfusions compared to outcomes for patients with carefully matched medical status.
"This is a retrospective case-controlled study. It does not have the rigor of a randomized, controlled trial so that still needs to be done," Dr. Nicole Bouvier, an infectious disease specialist at Mt. Sinai and the study's lead author, told Reuters.
"This does show promise that convalescent plasma is effective."
Read also: 'Superheroes': Coronavirus survivors donate plasma hoping to heal the sick
Nearly 70 percent of the 39 patients were on high-flow oxygen and 10 percent were on mechanical ventilation. After two weeks, the disease worsened in 18 percent of the plasma patients and 24 percent of the control patients.
As of May 1, nearly 13 percent of plasma recipients had died, compared with more than 24 percent of the control patients, with 72 percent and 67 percent, respectively, being discharged alive.
People who survive an infectious disease like COVID-19 are left with blood containing antibodies, or proteins made by the body’s immune system to fight off a virus. The blood component that carries the antibodies can be collected and given to newly infected patients - it is known as “convalescent plasma”.
Hospitals around the world have been using plasma donated by recovered COVID-19 patients, but there has been little information on how effective the treatment is.
The US Food and Drug Administration on May 1 gave emergency approval to Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir for COVID-19 based on data showing that it reduced hospitalization time by 31 percent compared to a placebo, but did not have a significant effect on survival.
