No benefit of convalescent plasma in COVID-19 patients, study finds

Convalescent plasma therapy didn’t help 52 seriously ill COVID-19 patients recover in the first known randomized study of its kind, although it was stopped early because of low enrollment. The study, published yesterday in JAMA, involved coronavirus patients with severe illness (respiratory distress and/or low oxygen levels) or life-threatening disease (shock, organ failure, or the need for mechanical ventilation) in seven medical centers in Wuhan, China, from Feb 14 to Apr 1, with final follow-up on Apr 28. The trial was stopped early because, owing to containment of the Wuhan outbreak, researchers were able to recruit only 103 of 200 patients needed to generate a clinically meaningful result. One patient withdrew from the study, and one in the control group received convalescent plasma, a protocol violation, because of a life-threatening infection. Convalescent plasma therapy, which dates back to the early 20th century, involves the transfusion of blood plasma collected from patients recovered from infection to improve immune response in the recipient. Although evidence supporting its use in COVID-19 patients is scarce, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved its emergency use in patients who have severe or life-threatening coronavirus infection.