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By Kate Kelland
LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – An international trial testing convalescent blood plasma in COVID-19 patients with moderate and severe disease has halted recruitment of critically ill COVID-19 patients requiring intensive care after finding no no benefit, trial investigators said Monday.
The decision by REMAP-CAP trial officials came after an initial analysis of more than 900 critically ill trial participants in intensive care showed that treatment with the product – antibody-rich plasma taken from people who recovered from pandemic illness – did not improve outcomes.
“There was no evidence of harm associated with the administration of convalescent plasma” (and) the trial continues to enroll hospitalized COVID-19 patients who are moderately ill but not in intensive care, the scientists told the head of the essay in a statement.
“It is biologically plausible that patients who do not produce antibodies at the time of convalescent plasma therapy and patients with excess virus may benefit more than others. Our additional analyzes will explore this,” said Manu Shankar- Hari, a clinician and professor of critical care medicine at Britain’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, who is co-leading the trial.
He added that the initial analysis did not assess the effects of plasma in hospitalized patients with less severe disease. This “remains a very important question” and will continue to be explored in the ongoing trial, he said.
The assumption behind using convalescent plasma as a potential treatment for patients with COVID-19 is that the antibodies it contains could neutralize the virus, preventing it from replicating and stopping tissue damage. .
But that initial analysis leading up to the REMAP-CAP pause in recruiting critically ill patients showed there was a very low probability – 2.2% – that it reduced death rates or decreased the number of days the patients needed intensive care.
“The reason why convalescent plasma does not appear to improve outcomes in critically ill COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care is not yet known. However, this may be because the lung damage is too advanced for convalescent plasma to make a difference,” said Alexis Turgeon. , a critical care physician and professor at Laval University in Canada, who is also working on the trial.
REMAP-CAP is an international clinical trial exploring potential treatments for COVID-19. It has already recruited 4,100 COVID-19 patients from more than 290 clinical sites across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australasia.
Separate results from REMAP-CAP showed last week that treating critically ill patients with COVID-19 with the arthritis drugs Actemra from Roche or Kevzara from Sanofi significantly improved survival rates and reduced the length of time the patients needed intensive care.
The trial also examines the potential effects of a range of other existing therapies, including anticoagulant drugs, antiplatelet agents, antibiotics, statins and vitamin C. (Report by Kate Kelland; edited by Nick Macfie)
