Virology Journal (Sep 2024)

Outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with obinutuzumab compared with patients with rituximab: a retrospective cohort study

  • Wenxiu Shu,
  • Qianqian Yang,
  • Jing Le,
  • Qianqian Cai,
  • Hui Dai,
  • Liufei Luo,
  • Jiaqi Tong,
  • Yanping Song,
  • Bingrong Chen,
  • Dengbing Chen,
  • Dian Jin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12985-024-02484-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 21, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Abstract Background Patients treated with anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies could have a higher risk of adverse outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The novel anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab has shown greater B-cell depletion and superior in vitro efficacy than rituximab. We aimed to assess whether obinutuzumab would result in worse COVID-19 outcomes than rituximab. Methods We retrospectively reviewed 124 patients with B-cell lymphoma, 106 of whom received rituximab treatment and 18 of whom received obinutuzumab treatment. The adverse outcomes of COVID-19 were compared between patients in the two cohorts. Results The proportions of patients who were hospitalized (55.6% vs. 20.8%, p = 0.005), experienced prolonged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (38.9% vs. 2.9%, p < 0.001), and developed severe COVID-19 (33.3% vs. 4.7%, p < 0.001) were higher in patients with obinutuzumab than in those with rituximab. Multivariate analyses showed that obinuzumab treatment was associated with higher incidences of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection (OR 27.05, 95% CI 3.75-195.22, p = 0.001) and severe COVID-19(OR 15.07, 95% CI 2.58–91.72, p = 0.003). Conclusions Our study suggested that patients treated with obinutuzumab had a higher risk of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19 than those treated with rituximab.

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