AIIMS says initial findings on plasma therapy did not show promising evidence
New Delhi: Convalescent plasma therapy did not show benefit in reducing mortality risk among COVID-19 patients, according to an interim analysis of a randomised controlled trial done at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here to assess the efficacy of this mode of treatment. This comes in the backdrop of the Delhi government having invested heavily in plasma therapy and even having set up at least two plasma banks in the Capital.
Plasma therapy involves taking antibodies from the plasma of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing them into an active coronavirus infected patient to help kickstart their immune system to fight the infection.
"These are initial analyses. There were two groups of 15 patients each on whom a randomised control trial was done to know the effectiveness of plasma therapy. One group received standard treatment protocol while the other group received convalescent plasma therapy along with standard treatment. It was noted that mortality was similar in both the groups with not much clinical benefits to the patients," Dr Randeep Guleria, Director at AIIMS said in a statement.
He also said that they needed more evidence on it to make final conclusions. "Current evidence suggests that convalescent plasma is safe, does not cause any harm to a patient. But at the same time, it (plasma therapy) is not very effective and hence should be used prudently," Dr Guleria further said.
He also underlined that plasma has to be tested for its safety and should have sufficient antibodies to be useful to COVID-19 patients. The discussion on convalescent plasma therapy in moderate to severe coronavirus-infected patients was discussed in the third National Clinical Grand Rounds (CGR) on COVID-19 held on Wednesday.
"Plasma is safe. As far as its efficacy is concerned, we do not have a green signal yet. So the clinical use has to be very judicious and within the ambit of national guidelines," Dr Monish Soneja, an additional professor in the Medicine department at AIIMS, said at the webinar.
Convalescent plasma therapy has been listed as an investigational therapy for off-label use in coronavirus infected patients because as of now there is no conclusive evidence for its efficacy, Dr Soneja said.
Soneja said, "There may be a subset of patients with certain characteristics who may benefit from plasma," he said, adding that this is a work in progress as they do not know those characteristics yet. Meanwhile, Dr Neeraj Nischal, associate professor in the department of medicine at AIIMS said, "This therapy also carries risks such as inadvertent transfer of blood-borne infections and reactions to serum constituents, including immunological reactions such as serum sickness, that may worsen the clinical condition."
