Symptom Duration and Resolution With Early Outpatient Treatment of Convalescent Plasma for Coronavirus Disease 2019:...

Area of Science:

• Infectious Diseases
• Immunology
• Clinical Medicine

Background:

• Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescent plasma (CCP) is known to reduce hospitalizations in early outpatient treatment.
• The effect of CCP on the time to symptom resolution in outpatients remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate if COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) accelerates symptom resolution in outpatients with early COVID-19.
• To compare the prevalence of symptom clusters at day 14 between CCP and control plasma recipients.

Main Methods:

• An adjusted subdistribution hazard model was used to assess symptom resolution at day 14, with hospitalization as a competing risk.
• Symptom clusters were defined based on biologic clustering, impact on work, and algorithmic analysis.
• 1070 outpatients were followed up after transfusion.

Main Results:

• At day 14, symptom resolution rates were similar between CCP (70.8%) and control plasma (71.6%) groups.
• No significant difference in symptom resolution by day 14 was observed between CCP and control groups after adjusting for baseline characteristics (aSHR, 0.99; P = .62).
• The most common symptom cluster (cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, headache) showed no significant difference in prevalence between groups (57.2% vs 61.1%, P = .16).

Conclusions:

• COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) was not associated with faster symptom resolution compared to control plasma in outpatients with early COVID-19.
• No significant differences in the prevalence of individual symptoms or symptom clusters were found between treatment groups at day 14.