Convalescent plasma use in the USA was inversely correlated with COVID-19 mortality.
Elife
; 102021 06 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1278700
ABSTRACT
Background:
The US Food and Drug Administration authorized COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy for hospitalized COVID-19 patients via the Expanded Access Program (EAP) and the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), leading to use in about 500,000 patients during the first year of the pandemic for the USA.Methods:
We tracked the number of CCP units dispensed to hospitals by blood banking organizations and correlated that usage with hospital admission and mortality data.Results:
CCP usage per admission peaked in Fall 2020, with more than 40% of inpatients estimated to have received CCP between late September and early November 2020. However, after randomized controlled trials failed to show a reduction in mortality, CCP usage per admission declined steadily to a nadir of less than 10% in March 2021. We found a strong inverse correlation (r = -0.52, p=0.002) between CCP usage per hospital admission and deaths occurring 2 weeks after admission, and this finding was robust to examination of deaths taking place 1, 2, or 3 weeks after admission. Changes in the number of hospital admissions, SARS-CoV-2 variants, and age of patients could not explain these findings. The retreat from CCP usage might have resulted in as many as 29,000 excess deaths from mid-November 2020 to February 2021.Conclusions:
A strong inverse correlation between CCP use and mortality per admission in the USA provides population-level evidence consistent with the notion that CCP reduces mortality in COVID-19 and suggests that the recent decline in usage could have resulted in excess deaths.Funding:
There was no specific funding for this study. AC was supported in part by RO1 HL059842 and R01 AI1520789; MJJ was supported in part by 5R35HL139854. This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services; Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority under Contract No. 75A50120C00096.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
ELife.69866
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