Eur Respir J. 2021 Jul 8:2101471. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01471-2021. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The effects of convalescent plasma (CP) therapy hospitalised patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remain uncertain. This study investigates the effect CP on clinical improvement in these patients.
METHODS: This is an investigator-initiated, randomised, parallel arm, open-label, superiority clinical trial. Patients were randomly (1:1) assigned to two infusions of CP plus standard of care (SOC) or SOC alone. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with clinical improvement 28 days after enrolment.
RESULTS: A total of 160 (80 in each arm) patients (66.3% were critically ill and 33.7%, severe) completed the trial. The median age was 60.5 years (interquartile range [IQR], 48-68), 58.1% were men and the median time from symptom onset to randomisation was 10 days (IQR, 8-12). Neutralising antibodies titres >1:80 were present in 133 (83.1%) patients at baseline. The proportion of patients with clinical improvement on day 28 was 61.3% in the CP+SOC and 65.0% in the SOC group (difference, -3.7%; 95% Confidence Interval [CI], -18.8%-11.3%). The results were similar in the subgroups of severe and critically ill. There was no significant difference between CP+SOC and SOC groups in prespecified secondary outcomes, including 28-day mortality, days alive and free of respiratory support and duration of invasive ventilatory support. Inflammatory and other laboratorial markers values on days 3, 7 and 14 were similar between groups.
CONCLUSIONS: CP+SOC did not result in a higher proportion of clinical improvement on at day 28 in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 compared to SOC alone.
PMID:34244316 | DOI:10.1183/13993003.01471-2021