More than one year into the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, healthcare systems across the world continue to be overwhelmed with soaring daily cases. The treatment spectrum primarily includes ventilation support augmented with repurposed drugs and/or convalescent plasma transfusion (CPT) from recovered COVID-19 patients. Despite vaccine variants being recently developed and administered in several countries, challenges in global supply chain logistics limit their timely availability to the wider world population, particularly in developing countries. Given the measured success of conventional CPT in treating several infections over the past decade, recent studies have reported its effectiveness in decreasing the duration and severity of COVID-19 symptoms. In this review, we conduct a literature search of published studies investigating the use of CPT to treat COVID-19 patients from January 2020 to January 2021. The literature search identified 181 records of which 39 were included in this review. A random-effects model was used to aggregate data across studies, and mortality rates of 17 vs. 32% were estimated for the CPT and control patient groups, respectively, with an odds ratio (OR) of 0.49. The findings indicate that CPT shows potential in reducing the severity and duration of COVID-19 symptoms. However, early intervention (preferably within 3 days), recruitment of donors, and plasma potency introduce major challenges for its scaled-up implementation. Given the low number of existing randomized clinical trials (RCTs, four with a total of 319 patients), unanticipated risks to CPT recipients are highlighted and discussed. Nevertheless, CPT remains a promising COVID-19 therapeutic option that merits internationally coordinated RCTs to achieve a scientific risk–benefit consensus.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Therapeutics, clinical trials, convalescent plasma transfusion, 【초록키워드】 Treatment, coronavirus disease, convalescent plasma, randomized clinical trial, Coronavirus disease 2019, Vaccine, pandemic, Repurposed drugs, severity, variant, Infection, Ventilation, risk, Supply chain, Intervention, novel coronavirus disease, Symptoms, RCT, Novel coronavirus, Repurposed drug, severity of COVID-19, implementation, Effectiveness, plasma, donors, mortality rate, recruitment, mortality rates, COVID-19 symptoms, patients, COVID-19 patients, RCTs, Recovered COVID-19 patients, Odds ratio, COVID-19 patient, Healthcare system, therapeutic option, world population, Healthcare systems, Support, Consensus, patient groups, treat, random-effects model, aggregate, recipient, Administered, limit, was used, include, reported, reducing, 【제목키워드】 transfusion,