ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The aim was to evaluate the reinforcement of the standard therapy with hyperimmune plasma (HP) in Coronavirus-19 disease (COVID-19) patients. METHODS: Open-label, multicenter, randomized clinical trial performed in three hospitals in the Balearic Islands. Non-severe COVID-19 hospitalized patients with clinical time evolution equal to/less than 7 days were included, and randomized in: plasma group (PG) (n = 37), receiving 600 mL divided into two doses from convalescent plasma donor, administered on days 1 and 2 after the enrollment; and control group (CG) (n = 17). Primary outcome was the time for clinical improvement within 21 days, defined as patient achievement of categories 8, 7, and 6 in the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial scale (ACTT). The trial was terminated early due to the impossibility of recruitment due to the pandemic. RESULTS: PG presented better scores on the ACTT scale at 7 days after HP infusion, whereas CG was needed 14 days to achieve similar results. The plasma infusion was safe. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the tendency observed in the plasma group to achieve slightly earlier better physical condition compared with the standard treatment alone. The administration of HP has been shown to be a safe therapy. No robust evidence was found to affirm a therapeutic effect of the early administration of two infusions of HP for non-severe COVID-19 infected patients. The interpretation is limited by the early termination of the trial, which resulted in a small sample size.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To compare outcome between patients with pneumonia due to penicillin-susceptible S. pneumoniae and patients with pneumonia due to penicillin intermediately resistant strains and to study the outcome of patients with pneumococcal pneumonia caused by strains with MICs of 0.12-1 mg/L treated empirically during the first 48 h with beta-lactam antibiotics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We studied 247 adult patients with invasive pneumococcal pneumonia occurring from 1997 to 2001. The following data were recorded from each patient: socio-demographic characteristics, underlying diseases, clinical presentation, initial severity of pneumonia, initial and subsequent antimicrobial therapy, in-hospital complications, hospital mortality and length of hospital stay. Multivariate analysis was done to identify variables associated with the development of pneumonia caused by a non-susceptible strain. RESULTS: The overall presence of penicillin non-susceptibility was 26.7%; no strain had an MIC >2 mg/L. Overall mortality was 23.5% in patients with pneumonia caused by intermediately resistant pneumococci and 12.7% in those with pneumonia caused by susceptible strains (P=0.075). Mortality during the first 7 days of admission, considered to be pneumonia-related deaths (13.7% versus 9.9%; P=0.448) was similar in both groups. The multivariate analysis showed that serotype 14 (OR, 140.18; 95% CI, 16.95-1159.20), serotype 19 (OR, 7.53; 95% CI, 1.98-28.7), haematological malignancy or splenectomy (OR, 4.46; 95% CI, 1.5-13.23) and HIV infection (OR, 4.54; 95% CI, 1.54-13.44) were the only independent factors associated with pneumonia caused by penicillin intermediately resistant pneumococci. In patients with strains having MICs of 0.1-1 mg/L, overall mortality was similar in the group of penicillin-treated patients (22.2%) to those treated with broad-spectrum beta-lactams (23.5%). CONCLUSIONS: There is a non-significant trend to higher mortality in patients with pneumococcal pneumonia caused by intermediately resistant strains; however, they do not have a poorer outcome when they are treated with amoxicillin.
