Canada begins clinical trial of experimental COVID-19 treatment using plasma from recovered individuals

[Jm954]

A team of blood transfusion experts from across Canada is planning the world’s largest clinical trial of a potential treatment for COVID-19. The study, which will involve 1,000 patients from across the country, will include at least 40 Canadian hospitals.

The experimental treatment involves injecting antibody-rich plasma from patients who have recovered from the virus into those who are still infected. This approach has only been tried in small trials in China, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S. It is part of a global race to find a treatment for the disease, with researchers also focusing on antivirals and medications used to treat malaria.

Donation centres across Canada will extract plasma from recovered patients and test that it has a certain minimum number of antibodies to be considered useful as an immunotherapy. Known as convalescent plasma, the material will then be frozen, sent to participating hospitals and infused into a critical patient to see if it can help treat their illness. In the early stages of infection, the body doesn’t produce the antibodies needed to fight off the novel coronavirus, according to Dr. Donald Arnold, a hematologist at McMaster University who is leading the trial.

More here: theglobeandmail.com/canada/...

Observation points from me: the timing of this potential treatment will be crucial. Other articles have said that patients need ventilation as a result of the cytokine storm that damages the lungs (not the virus infection itself). This then leaves the patient with dangerously low oxygen levels which in turn can lead to kidney and heart failure. It's hard to know how antibodies will help at this point so the immunoglobulins will probably need to be give earlier in the infection to stop it progressing to this stage. The difficulty here is that vast majority of patients do not progress to needing ventilation.

Stay home, stay safe

Jackie

[alexmcg48]

I think they're doing something similar here in the UK, although they've told us there's a number of trails going on & no real detail.

[Psmithuk]

I’m just happy that so many different scientists in so many different countries are searching for anything that will help us!

Thanks for sharing it, and your comments.

Cx

[june65 in reply to Psmithuk]

I saw on Facebook earlier that someone recovering from CoVid-19 is taking part in a clinical trial at Wrexham Maelor hospital, North Wales. May be something similar.

[cajunjeff]

Good points Jackie. Questions I have: How are the people for the trials picked, at what stage of covid or at various stages? How many people can one donor help? Can the antibodies be made en masse in a lab? How ill we know who got better from antibodies and who was going to get better anyway? Will there be a control group?

I am sure people way smarter than me are designing the trial to get the most useful info. This treatment holds way more hope for me than any of the others.

PS If anyone on here has had covid and some antibody rich plasma to spare, private message me and Ill give you my address.

[Jm954 Administrator in reply to cajunjeff]

Jeff, this is complicated and there are lots of questions not answered in this article.

I don’t think they are planning to concentrate the antibodies or make them in a lab. They are having problems identifying the unique virus antibodies and there is still not a reliable antibody test.

Unlike ivig this donor plasma is not processed and cannot be given to anyone because it contains antibodies to red cells so it has to be matched. Plasma transfusion itself carries the risk of something called TRALI or Transfusion Related Acute Lung Injury which can be lethal.

I’m going to have a look to see if the trial is listed on the trial website.

Jackie

[Jm954 Administrator in reply to Jm954]

Nothing here about this trial but plenty of other trials information:

nihr.ac.uk/covid-19/

Jackie