Annals of Intensive Care (Oct 2024)

Immunological sub-phenotypes and response to convalescent plasma in COVID-19 induced ARDS: a secondary analysis of the CONFIDENT trial

  • Benoît Misset,
  • Anh Nguyet Diep,
  • Axelle Bertrand,
  • Michael Piagnerelli,
  • Eric Hoste,
  • Isabelle Michaux,
  • Elisabeth De Waele,
  • Alexander Dumoulin,
  • Philippe G. Jorens,
  • Emmanuel van der Hauwaert,
  • Frédéric Vallot,
  • Walter Swinnen,
  • Nicolas De Schryver,
  • Nathalie de Mey,
  • Nathalie Layios,
  • Jean-Baptiste Mesland,
  • Sébastien Robinet,
  • Etienne Cavalier,
  • Anne-Françoise Donneau,
  • Michel Moutschen,
  • Pierre-François Laterre

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13613-024-01392-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

Read online

Abstract Background Convalescent plasma (CP) reduced the mortality in COVID-19 induced ARDS (C-ARDS) patients treated in the CONFIDENT trial. As patients are immunologically heterogeneous, we hypothesized that clusters may differ in their treatment responses to CP. Methods We measured 20 cytokines, chemokines and cell adhesion markers using a multiplex technique at the time of inclusion in the CONFIDENT trial in patients of centers having accepted to participate in this secondary study. We performed descriptive statistics, unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis, and examined the association between the clusters and CP effect on day-28 mortality. Results Of the 475 patients included in CONFIDENT, 391 (82%) were sampled, and 196/391 (50.1%) had been assigned to CP. We identified four sub-phenotypes representing 89 (22.8%), 178 (45.5%), 38 (9.7%), and 86 (22.0%) patients. The most contributing biomarkers in the principal component analysis were IL-1β, IL-12p70, IL-6, IFN-α, IL-17A, IFN-γ, IL-13, TFN-α, total IgG, and CXCL10. Sub-phenotype-1 displayed a lower immune response, sub-phenotype-2 a higher adaptive response, sub-phenotype-3 the highest innate antiviral, pro and anti-inflammatory response, and adhesion molecule activation, and sub-phenotype-4 a higher pro and anti-inflammatory response, migration protein and adhesion molecule activation. Sub-phenotype-2 and sub-phenotype-4 had higher severity at the time of inclusion. The effect of CP treatment on mortality appeared higher than standard care in each sub-phenotype, without heterogeneity between sub-phenotypes (p = 0.97). Conclusion In patients with C-ARDS, we identified 4 sub-phenotypes based on their immune response. These sub-phenotypes were associated with different clinical profiles. The response to CP was similar across the 4 sub-phenotypes. Trial registration: Ethics Committee of the University Hospital of Liège CE 2020/239. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04558476. Registered 2020-09-11, https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04558476 .

Keywords