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Review
. 2016 Feb;23(1):39-44.
doi: 10.1016/j.tracli.2015.12.003. Epub 2016 Jan 6.

Plasma therapy against infectious pathogens, as of yesterday, today and tomorrow

O Garraud  1 , F Heshmati  2 , B Pozzetto  3 , F Lefrere  4 , R Girot  5 , A Saillol  6 , S Laperche  7
Affiliations
Review

Plasma therapy against infectious pathogens, as of yesterday, today and tomorrow

O Garraud et al. Transfus Clin Biol. 2016 Feb.

Abstract
in English, French

Plasma therapy consists in bringing to a patient in need - in general suffering a severe, resistant to current therapy, and even lethal infection - plasma or specific, fractioned, antibodies, along with other immunoglobulins and possibly healing factors that can be obtained from immunized blood donors; donors (voluntary and benevolent) can be either actively immunized individuals or convalescent persons. Plasma therapy has been used since the Spanish flu in 1917-1918, and regularly then when viral epidemics threatened vulnerable populations, the last reported occurrence being the 2013-2015 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa. The precise action mechanism of plasma therapy is not fully delineated as it may function beyond purified, neutralizing antibodies.

La plasmathérapie consiste en l’apport à un patient, en général victime d’une infection sévère, résistante au traitement en cours et potentiellement létale, de plasma thérapeutique ou d’anticorps spécifiques purifiés, mais aussi des immunoglobulines polyréactives et des facteurs de cicatrisation présents dans le plasma des donneurs. Ces donneurs (bénévoles et volontaires) peuvent avoir été préalablement immunisés ou ils ont été infectées mais ils sont alors convalescents. La plasmathérapie a été mise en œuvre dès la grande grippe espagnole de 1917–1918, puis ensuite très régulièrement à chaque occurrence d’épidémie virale menaçante, la dernière en date étant l’épidémie de fièvre Ebola apparue récemment en Afrique de l’Ouest. Les mécanismes d’action précis de la plasmathérapie – au-delà des seuls anticorps neutralisants – sont encore non précisément identifiés.

Keywords: Anticorps neutralisants; Convalescent plasma; Ebolavirus; Ebolavirus infection; Infectious disease; Maladies infectieuses; Neutralizing antibodies; Plasma convalescent; Plasma therapy; Plasma thérapeutique; Plasmathérapie; Therapeutic plasma; Transfusion.

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