JCI Insight (Feb 2021)

Treatment of severe COVID-19 with convalescent plasma in Bronx, NYC

  • Hyun ah Yoon,
  • Rachel Bartash,
  • Inessa Gendlina,
  • Johanna Rivera,
  • Antonio Nakouzi,
  • Robert H. Bortz III,
  • Ariel S. Wirchnianski,
  • Monika Paroder,
  • Karen Fehn,
  • Leana Serrano-Rahman,
  • Rachelle Babb,
  • Uzma N. Sarwar,
  • Denise Haslwanter,
  • Ethan Laudermilch,
  • Catalina Florez,
  • M. Eugenia Dieterle,
  • Rohit K. Jangra,
  • J. Maximilian Fels,
  • Karen Tong,
  • Margarette C. Mariano,
  • Olivia Vergnolle,
  • George I. Georgiev,
  • Natalia G. Herrera,
  • Ryan J. Malonis,
  • Jose A. Quiroz,
  • Nicholas C. Morano,
  • Gregory J. Krause,
  • Joseph M. Sweeney,
  • Kelsie Cowman,
  • Stephanie Allen,
  • Jayabhargav Annam,
  • Ariella Applebaum,
  • Daniel Barboto,
  • Ahmed Khokhar,
  • Brianna J. Lally,
  • Audrey Lee,
  • Max Lee,
  • Avinash Malaviya,
  • Reise Sample,
  • Xiuyi A. Yang,
  • Yang Li,
  • Rafael Ruiz,
  • Raja Thota,
  • Jason Barnhill,
  • Doctor Y. Goldstein,
  • Joan Uehlinger,
  • Scott J. Garforth,
  • Steven C. Almo,
  • Jonathan R. Lai,
  • Morayma Reyes Gil,
  • Amy S. Fox,
  • Kartik Chandran,
  • Tao Wang,
  • Johanna P. Daily,
  • Liise-anne Pirofski

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 4

Abstract

Read online

Convalescent plasma with severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antibodies (CCP) may hold promise as a treatment for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We compared the mortality and clinical outcome of patients with COVID-19 who received 200 mL of CCP with a spike protein IgG titer ≥ 1:2430 (median 1:47,385) within 72 hours of admission with propensity score–matched controls cared for at a medical center in the Bronx, between April 13 and May 4, 2020. Matching criteria for controls were age, sex, body mass index, race, ethnicity, comorbidities, week of admission, oxygen requirement, D-dimer, lymphocyte counts, corticosteroid use, and anticoagulation use. There was no difference in mortality or oxygenation between CCP recipients and controls at day 28. When stratified by age, compared with matched controls, CCP recipients less than 65 years had 4-fold lower risk of mortality and 4-fold lower risk of deterioration in oxygenation or mortality at day 28. For CCP recipients, pretransfusion spike protein IgG, IgM, and IgA titers were associated with mortality at day 28 in univariate analyses. No adverse effects of CCP were observed. Our results suggest CCP may be beneficial for hospitalized patients less than 65 years, but data from controlled trials are needed to validate this finding and establish the effect of aging on CCP efficacy.

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