Early Transfusion of Convalescent Plasma Improves the Clinical Outcome in Severe SARS-CoV2 Infection

  1. Eszter Fodor
  2. Veronika Müller
  3. Zsolt Iványi
  4. Tímea Berki
  5. Olga Kuten Pella
  6. István Hornyák
  7. Mira Ambrus
  8. Ágnes Sárkány
  9. Árpád Skázel
  10. Ágnes Madár
  11. Dorottya Kardos
  12. Gábor Kemenesi
  13. Fanni Földes
  14. Sándor Nagy
  15. Andrea Matusovits
  16. Nacsa János
  17. Attila Tordai
  18. Ferenc Jakab
  19. Zsombor Lacza

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1007/s40121-021-00514-7
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.25.21257770: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablePlasma donation: Plasma was collected from healthy voluntary convalescent donors of both sexes aged 18-65 years, with confirmed previous SARS-CoV2 infection.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    An inclusion criterion was a positive IgG antibody level (>24 U/ml) against SARS-CoV2 nucleocapsid protein (measured by Microgen semi-quantitative ELISA assays).
    SARS-CoV2 nucleocapsid protein
    suggested: None
    To decrease the risks of TRALI (transfusion-related acute lung injury), all female donors were screened for anti-HLA antibodies, and positive donors were excluded from plasma donation.
    anti-HLA
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    An inclusion criterion was a positive IgG antibody level (>24 U/ml) against SARS-CoV2 nucleocapsid protein (measured by Microgen semi-quantitative ELISA assays).
    Microgen
    suggested: (MicroGen, RRID:SCR_010976)
    Statistical analysis: Data were analyzed with the two-tailed Mann-Whitney test and Fisher’s exact test using GraphPad Prism software.
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations of the current study include its non-controlled design, its limited sample size and partial unavailability of samples for detailed immunological testing in a significant proportion of the patients included. Pre-hospital history of the patients was not accessible leaving room for variation in SARS2-CoV2 infection periods. In light of all the above limitations, we believe that our observations should rather be viewed as an indicator prompting further studies with improved design targeting special features of CCP therapy such as early intervention in patients with only moderate IL-6 levels. Comparing results of the large number of registered clinical trials (n=164 on ClinicalTrials.gov at the time of writing) may help to identify critical factors in study design and patient selection to obtain benefits of clinical outcome after CCP in severe COVID-19, however, this future effort will depend on original study data to become available. In conclusion, our results indicate that CCP transfusion is a safe supplementary option that can easily be incorporated into the complex therapeutic scheme of severe COVID-19 patients. Early timing of CCP transfusion is clearly preferable. CCP transfusion resulted in significant decreases in inflammatory markers and pretransfusion measurements of these markers may allow further stratification of severe COVID-19 patients amenable for efficient CCP therapy.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04345679RecruitingAnti COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Therapy

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.25.21257770v1 on medRxiv