• Douglas Tremblay, Carina Seah, Thomas Schneider, Sheena Bhalla, Jonathan Feld, Leonard Naymagon, Bo Wang, Vaibhav Patel, Tomi Jun, Thomas Jandl, Farah Rahman, Sean T H Liu, Judith A Aberg, Nicole Bouvier, and Mount Sinai Health System Convalescent Plasma Team.
• Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Tisch Cancer Institute, New York, NY, USA.
• Cancer Med. 2020 Nov 1; 9 (22): 8571-8578.

BackgroundPatients with malignancy are particularly vulnerable to infection with Severe Acute Respiratory Disease-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) given their immunodeficiency secondary to their underlying disease and cancer-directed therapy. We report a case series of patients with cancer who received convalescent plasma, an investigational therapy for severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).MethodsPatients with cancer were identified who received convalescent plasma. Enrolled patients had confirmed COVID-19 with severe or life-threatening disease and were transfused with convalescent plasma from donors with a SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike antibody titer of ≥ 1:320 dilution. Oxygen requirements and clinical outcomes of interests were captured as well as laboratory parameters at baseline and 3 days after treatment.ResultsWe identified 24 patients with cancer, 14 of whom had a hematological malignancy, who were treated with convalescent plasma. Fifteen patients (62.5%) were on cancer-directed treatment at the time of COVID-19 infection. After a median of hospital duration of 9 days, 13 patients (54.2%) had been discharged home, 1 patient (4.2%) was still hospitalized, and 10 patients had died (41.7%). Non-intubated patients, particularly those on nasal cannula alone, had favorable outcomes. Three mild febrile non-hemolytic transfusion reactions were observed. C-reactive protein significantly decreased after 3 days of treatment, while other laboratory parameters including ferritin and D-dimer remained unchanged.ConclusionsConvalescent plasma may be a promising therapy in cancer patients with COVID-19.© 2020 The Authors. Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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