A pilot study published on Monday has suggested the feasibility of convalescent plasma (CP) therapy for treating COVID-19 patients.
In the study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, researchers explored the feasibility of CP therapy for 10 severe COVID-19 patients, aged between 34 and 78.
The enrolled patients received transfusion of one dose of 200 milliliters CP derived from recently recovered donors, containing high levels of SARS-COV-2 neutralizing antibody. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.
Within three days of CP transfusion, clinical symptoms, such as fever, cough, shortness of breath and chest pain significantly improved, and patients exhibited increased lymphocyte counts, improved liver and lung function and reduced inflammation, according to the study.
Neutralizing antibody levels increased or remained high after CP transfusion.
Within seven days of transfusion, varying degrees of reabsorption of lung lesions were observed on chest CT scans, according to the study. In addition, no serious adverse reactions were observed after CP transfusion.
The results, though preliminary, suggest that CP therapy might be a safe and promising treatment for severe COVID-19 patients and support further investigation in randomized controlled clinical trials, according to the authors.
The authors include Zhu Chen of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Xiaoming Yang of the National Engineering Technology Research Center for Combined Vaccines in Wuhan, China.
Currently there is no specific antiviral treatments for SARS-CoV-2, creating a need for alternative treatment strategies.
