Study with UPMC researchers finds convalescent plasma ‘futile’ in treating most critically ill covid patients

At the start of the covid-19 pandemic, calls were made for anyone who survived the virus to donate plasma if they were able to, as the so-called “survivor plasma” had been used. successfully to treat other viruses.

The National Institutes of Health halted their own trials of convalescent plasma for emergency room patients with mild symptoms in late winter, citing “no significant benefit.” Similar results have come from trials with people at the onset of their illness.

Now, an international research team comprising scientists and patients from UPMC claim to have ruled out the idea that plasma may be useful for the most seriously ill patients, calling it “futile” as a covid-19 treatment. . The research results are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, along with a presentation at the annual meeting of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine.

“There were biologically plausible reasons to turn to convalescent plasma at the start of the pandemic, when hundreds of thousands of people were falling ill and treatments had yet to be discovered,” Dr Bryan said. McVerry, UPMC intensivist and co-lead author of the study.

“Unfortunately, it was either given outside of clinical trials or in trials that weren’t focused on critically ill patients, which slowed down our ability to see if it actually worked,” McVerry said.

The therapy dates back to the 1800s and early 1900s, when it was used to help treat viruses like measles and the Spanish flu. More recently it has shown some success in treating Ebola.

The latest trial reached its conclusion when researchers gathered enough data to state “with more than 99% certainty that convalescent plasma did not help critically ill Covid-19 patients,” officials said. Pitt in a statement.

The results were different for 126 patients included in the study who were considered immunocompromised, the researchers said. This group did a little better with the plasma treatment, Pitt said.

“It may be that patients with weakened immune systems, who are unable to develop an effective immune response, may still benefit from the antibodies present in the blood plasma of patients recovered from the disease, especially at the onset of the disease”, said Dr Lisa Estcourt, professor of hematology and transfusion medicine at the University of Oxford.

Dr Derek Angus, director of innovation at UPMC, said the overall ineffectiveness of plasma therapy could be based on too few high-quality antibodies in plasma, coupled with disease too advanced for antibodies can help.

He said it was not effective to continue using the convalescent plasma treatment when the monoclonal antibodies were found to be effective.