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Publications

Journal Article Ppublish 6 citations

PubMed: 39352932 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2414957121

Estimates of actual and potential lives saved in the United States from the use of COVID-19 convalescent plasma.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 121(41):e2414957121

Authors: Quigly Dragotakes, Patrick W Johnson, Matthew R Buras, Rickey E Carter, Michael J Joyner, Evan Bloch, Kelly A Gebo, Daniel F Hanley, Jeffrey P Henderson, Liise-Anne Pirofski, Shmuel Shoham, Jonathon W Senefeld, Aaron A R Tobian, Chad C Wiggins, R Scott Wright, Nigel S Paneth, David J Sullivan, Arturo Casadevall

Affiliations

  • Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205.
  • Division of Clinical Trials and Biostatistics, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224.
  • Division of Biostatistics and Clinical Trials, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Scottsdale, AZ 85259.
  • Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 32224.
  • Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905.
  • Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205.
  • Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205.
  • Department of Neurology, Brain Injury Outcomes Division, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205.
  • Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Washington University School of Medicine, Louis, St. Louis, MO 63110.
  • Division of Infectious Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 10461.
  • Department of Health and Kinesiology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801.
  • Department of Kinesiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823.
  • Departments of Cardiovascular Medicine and Human Research Protection Program, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905.
  • Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823.
  • Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48823.

Abstract

In the Spring of 2020, the United States of America (USA) deployed COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) to treat hospitalized patients. Over 500,000 patients were treated with CCP during the first year of the pandemic. In this study, we estimated the number of actual inpatient lives saved by CCP treatment in the United States of America based on CCP weekly use, weekly national mortality data, and CCP mortality reduction data from meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials and real-world data. We also estimate the potential number of lives saved if CCP had been deployed for 100% of hospitalized patients or used in 15 to 75% of outpatients. Depending on the assumptions modeled in stratified analyses, we estimated that CCP saved between 16,476 and 66,296 lives. The CCP ideal use might have saved as many as 234,869 lives and prevented 1,136,133 hospitalizations. CCP deployment was a successful strategy for ameliorating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. This experience has important implications for convalescent plasma use in future infectious disease emergencies.

MeSH

Mortality, Covid-19, Pandemics, Plasma

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