Effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy in severe COVID-19 patients
View ORCID ProfileKai Duan, Bende Liu, Cesheng Li, View ORCID ProfileHuajun Zhang, Ting Yu, View ORCID ProfileJieming Qu, View ORCID ProfileMin Zhou, View ORCID ProfileLi Chen, Shengli Meng, Yong Hu, Cheng Peng, Mingchao Yuan, View ORCID ProfileJinyan Huang, Zejun Wang, Jianhong Yu, Xiaoxiao Gao, Dan Wang, View ORCID ProfileXiaoqi Yu, View ORCID ProfileLi Li, Jiayou Zhang, Xiao Wu, Bei Li, View ORCID ProfileYanping Xu, Wei Chen, Yan Peng, Yeqin Hu, Lianzhen Lin, Xuefei Liu, Shihe Huang, Zhijun Zhou, Lianghao Zhang, Yue Wang, Zhi Zhang, Kun Deng, Zhiwu Xia, Qin Gong, Wei Zhang, Xiaobei Zheng, Ying Liu, Huichuan Yang, Dongbo Zhou, Ding Yu, Jifeng Hou, Zhengli Shi, Saijuan Chen, Zhu Chen, Xinxin Zhang, and View ORCID ProfileXiaoming Yang
PNAS first published April 6, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004168117
Abstract
Currently, there are no approved specific antiviral agents for novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this study, 10 severe patients confirmed by real-time viral RNA test were enrolled prospectively. One dose of 200 mL of convalescent plasma (CP) derived from recently recovered donors with the neutralizing antibody titers above 1:640 was transfused to the patients as an addition to maximal supportive care and antiviral agents. The primary endpoint was the safety of CP transfusion. The second endpoints were the improvement of clinical symptoms and laboratory parameters within 3 d after CP transfusion. The median time from onset of illness to CP transfusion was 16.5 d. After CP transfusion, the level of neutralizing antibody increased rapidly up to 1:640 in five cases, while that of the other four cases maintained at a high level (1:640). The clinical symptoms were significantly improved along with increase of oxyhemoglobin saturation within 3 d. Several parameters tended to improve as compared to pretransfusion, including increased lymphocyte counts (0.65 × 109/L vs. 0.76 × 109/L) and decreased C-reactive protein (55.98 mg/L vs. 18.13 mg/L). Radiological examinations showed varying degrees of absorption of lung lesions within 7 d. The viral load was undetectable after transfusion in seven patients who had previous viremia. No severe adverse effects were observed. This study showed CP therapy was well tolerated and could potentially improve the clinical outcomes through neutralizing viremia in severe COVID-19 cases. The optimal dose and time point, as well as the clinical benefit of CP therapy, needs further investigation in larger well-controlled trials.
