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Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients, one of the first effective therapies to emerge for the pandemic, dramatically reduces deaths among people unfortunate enough to suffer from both the novel coronavirus and blood cancer, study finds recent.
From the start of the pandemic, patients whose immune systems had been weakened by blood cancer, such as lymphoma or multiple myeloma, were considered one of the groups most at risk for serious illness from COVID. -19.
However, a study published in the journal JAMA Oncology found that the plasma of survivors almost halved the 30-day death rate in patients with blood cancer – by 24.8% in those who had not received. 13.3% plasma in those who received it.
The effect was even greater in patients admitted to a hospital intensive care unit with COVID-19 and blood cancer. The 30-day death rate for those who did not receive plasma was 46.9%, while it was only 15.8% for those who received plasma.
The study, a retrospective look at people who had previously been treated, looked at 966 patients with both COVID-19 and blood cancer; 143 of them had received plasma.
“We started to hear stories of extraordinary reversals,” said Jeffrey Henderson, one of the article’s authors and associate professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Some patients would be sick for weeks, then everything would improve in 24 hours.”
“The difference in survival rates among ICU patients was much higher than I expected,” said William Hartman, assistant professor of anesthesiology in the university’s faculty of medicine and public health. of Wisconsin-Madison. Hartman was not one of the study’s authors.
Henderson pointed out that the plasma treatment “is very safe and you can still get the vaccine.”
There is a theoretical possibility that the antibodies present in the plasma temporarily interfere with the vaccine response, making it less effective.
Even if that turns out to be the case, however, Henderson said people who received a plasma infusion could still get the shot at a later date.
Last August, the United States Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization allowing doctors to use plasma from COVID-19 survivors on patients hospitalized with the disease.
Henderson estimated that more than 100,000 COVID-19 patients received plasma. Although plasma studies are still ongoing, treatment appears to be most effective when given within the first five to seven days after symptoms of COVID-19 appear.
“The mantra is to give it early, in high titers and locally sourced plasma,” Hartman said. High titers mean high levels of antibodies. Local plasma is considered the best because it will be more likely to process the more prevalent variants of the virus in a geographic region.
Michael A. Thompson, co-director of Aurora Health Care’s precision medicine in oncology program, said the treatment carries a risk that a patient’s blood will experience a hypersensitivity reaction to the donor’s plasma.
This rare reaction can lead to tremors, chills, and shortness of breath.
Yet, he said, “It’s such a great story to be able to help our most vulnerable patients.”
Henderson said the study results also suggest that plasma may help COVID-19 patients with other conditions such as autoimmune diseases and congenital immune deficiencies.
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