The feasibility of convalescent plasma therapy in severe COVID-19 patients: a pilot study

Kai Duan; Bende Liu; Cesheng Li; Huajun Zhang; Ting Yu; Jieming Qu; Min Zhou; Li Chen; Shengli Meng; Yong Hu; Cheng Peng; Mingchao Yuan; Jinyan Huang; Zejun Wang; Jianhong Yu; Xiaoxiao Gao; Dan Wang; Xiaoqi Yu; Li Li; Jiayou Zhang; Xiao Wu; Bei Li; Yanping Yu; Wei Chen; Yan Peng; Yeqin Hu; Lianzhen Lin; Xuefei Liu; Shihe Huang; Zhijun Zhou; Lianghao Zhang; Yue Wang; Zhi Zhang; Kun Deng; Zhiwu Xia; Qin Gong; Wei Zhang; Xiaobei Zheng; Ying Liu; Huichuan Yang; Dongbo Zhou; Ding Yu; Jifeng Hou; Zhengli Shi; Saijuan Chen; Zhu Chen; Xin-xin Zhang; Xiaoming Yang

From January 23, 2020, to February 19, 2020, ten severe COVID-19 patients (six males and four females) were enrolled and received CP transfusion. The median age was 52.5 years (IQR, 45.0-59.5 years) ( Table 1) . None of the patients had direct exposure to Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The median time from onset of symptoms to hospital admission and CP transfusion was 6 days (IQR, 2.5-8.5 days) and 16.5 days (IQR11.0-19.3 days), respectively. Three patients were affected by clustering infection. The most common symptoms at disease onset were fever (seven of ten patients), cough (eight cases), and shortness of breath (eight cases), while less common symptoms included sputum production (five cases), chest pain (two cases), diarrhea (two cases), nausea and vomiting (two cases), headache (one case), and sore throat (one case). Four patients had underlying chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and/or cerebrovascular diseases and essential hypertension. Nine patients received arbidolmonotherapy or combination therapy with remdesivir (in one case not included in the current clinical trial), or ribavirin,or peramivir, while one patient received ribavirin monotherapy (Table 2) . Antibacterial or antifungal treatment was used when patients had co-infection. Six patients received intravenousmethylprednisolone (20 mg every 24 hrs).