Nutritional Advice El MondoObjectives:
Does convalescent plasma treatment reduce mortality rate among COVID-19 patients?
Study design:
This review article included 38 studies with a total of 27,706 COVID-patients, of which 3,262 (2,127 in convalescent plasma-treated (CPT) group and 1,135 in the non-convalescent plasma/control group) patients died.
Overall, risk-of-bias assessment showed that the included studies had low to medium risk of bias.
Results and conclusions:
The investigators found the quantitative synthesis in 23 studies showed that the odds of mortality in patients who received plasma therapy were significantly lower than those in patients who did not receive plasma therapy [odds ratio (OR) = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.53 to 0.80, p 0.0001, I2 = 15%].
The investigators found the mortality benefit remained the same even for 14 trials/prospective studies [OR = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.43 to 0.81, p = 0.001, I2 = 22%] as well as for 9 case series/retrospective observational studies [OR = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.65 to 0.94, p = 0.01, I2 = 0%].
The investigators found, however, in a subgroup analysis for 10 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), there was no statistically significant reduction in mortality between the convalescent plasma-treated group compared to the non-convalescent plasma-treated group [OR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.53 to 1.08, p = 0.13, I2 = 7%].
Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis of 10 RCTs, excluding the study with the highest statistical weight, displayed a lower mortality rate compared to that of non-convalescent plasma-treated COVID-19 patients [OR = 0.64, 95% CI = 0.42 to 0.97, p = 0.04, I2 = 0%]. The observed pooled mortality rate was 12.9% [95% CI = 9.7 to 16.9%] and the pooled adverse event rate was 6.1% [95% CI = 3.2 to 11.6, I2 = 94.9%].
The investigators concluded convalescent plasma treatment is effective in reducing the mortality rate in concomitant treatment for COVID-19 along with antiviral/antimicrobial drugs, steroids and other supportive care and has low incidence of serious adverse events during and after convalescent plasma infusion, which are mostly controllable.
Original title:
Mortality Benefit of Convalescent Plasma in COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by Bansal V, Mahapure KS, […], Kashyap R.
Link:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8062901/
Additional information of El Mondo:
Find more information/studies on coronavirus right here.