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. 2020 Oct 2;9(10):e23543.
doi: 10.2196/23543.

Safety and Efficacy of Convalescent Plasma to Treat Severe COVID-19: Protocol for the Saudi Collaborative Multicenter Phase II Study

Mohammed Albalawi #  1 , Syed Ziauddin Ahmed Zaidi #  2 , Nawal AlShehry  2 , Ahmed AlAskar  3 , Abdul Rehman Zia Zaidi  4 , Rania Nagib Mohammed Abdallah  5 , Abdul Salam  6 , Ahmed AlSagheir  7 , Nour AlMozain  8 , Ghada Elgohary  9 , Khalid Batarfi  10 , Alia Alfaraedi  11 , Osamah Khojah  11 , Rehab Al-Ansari  12 , Mona Alfaraj  13 , Afra Dayel  14 , Ahmed Al Bahrani  15 , Arwa Nabhan Abdelhameed  16 , Hind Alhumaidan  17 , Jawaher M Al-Otaibi  18 , Ghazala Radwi  19 , Abdulrahman Raizah  3 , Hind Shatry  3 , Sara Alsaleh  7 , Hazzaa AlZahrani  20 , Hani Al-Hashmi #  21
Affiliations

Safety and Efficacy of Convalescent Plasma to Treat Severe COVID-19: Protocol for the Saudi Collaborative Multicenter Phase II Study

Mohammed Albalawi et al. JMIR Res Protoc. .

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to cause significant morbidity and mortality. The development of an effective vaccine will take several months to become available, and its affordability is unpredictable. Transfusion of convalescent plasma (CP) may provide passive immunity. Based on initial data from China, a group of hematologists, infectious disease specialists, and intensivists drafted this protocol in March 2020.

Objective: The aim of this study is to test the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of CP in treating patients with COVID-19 across Saudi Arabia.

Methods: Eligible patients with COVID-19 will be recruited for CP infusion according to the inclusion criteria. As COVID-19 has proven to be a moving target as far as its management is concerned, we will use current definitions according to the Ministry of Health (MOH) guidelines for diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. All CP recipients will receive supportive management including all available recommended therapies according to the available MOH guidelines. Eligible CP donors will be patients with COVID-19 who have fully recovered from their disease according to MOH recovery criteria as detailed in the inclusion criteria. CP donors have to qualify as blood donors according to MOH regulations except for the history of COVID-19 in the recent past. We will also test the CP donors for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies by a rapid test, and aliquots will be archived for future antibody titration. Due to the perceived benefit of CP, randomization was not considered. However, we will compare the outcome of the cohort treated with CP with those who did not receive CP due to a lack of consent or lack of availability. In this national collaborative study, there is a likelihood of not finding exactly matched control group patients. Hence, we plan to perform a propensity score matching of the CP recipients with the comparator group patients for the major characteristics. We plan to collect demographic, clinical, and laboratory characteristics of both groups and compare the outcomes. A total sample size of 575 patients, 115 CP recipients and 460 matched controls (1:4 ratio), will be sufficient to detect a clinically important hospital stay and 30-day mortality difference between the two groups with 80% power and a 5% level of significance.

Results: At present, patient recruitment is still ongoing, and the interim analysis of the first 40 patients will be shared soon.

Conclusions: In this paper, we present a protocol for a national collaborative multicenter phase II study in Saudi Arabia for assessing the feasibility, safety, and potential efficacy of CP in treating patients with severe COVID-19. We plan to publish an interim report of the first 40 CP recipients and their matched comparators soon.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04347681; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04347681.

International registered report identifier (irrid): PRR1-10.2196/23543.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; antibodies; convalescent plasma; coronaviruses; efficacy; feasibility; immunology; infectious disease; safety; treatment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Some therapeutic options for treating COVID-19.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Logistic cycle of convalescent plasma procurement from donor, processing, and infusion to patient with COVID-19. IgG: immunoglobulin G; IgM: immunoglobulin M.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic for the proposed process of CP donation and infusion. CP: convalescent plasma; PCR: polymerase chain reaction.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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