Jan 7, 2021
High-titer convalescent plasma reduced progression to severe disease
Early administration of high-titer convalescent plasma was associated with reduced progression to severe Covid-19 in older adults treated within 72 hours of mild symptom onset in the INFANT-Covid-19 trial.
Among older patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and recent symptoms onset, treatment with high titer convalescent plasma was associated with a 48% reduction in the risk of progression to severe respiratory disease.
The trial, which was conducted in Argentina from June to Oct. 2020, was stopped early at 76% of projected accrual due to declines in community Covid-19.
While the study lacked the statistical power to confirm differences in long-term outcomes between the plasma and placebo groups, the convalescent plasma group appeared to have better outcomes with respect to all secondary endpoints, including life-threatening respiratory disease, noninvasive or invasive ventilation, and admission to the
Dec 28, 2020
Study in health care workers confirms post infection immunity
Health care workers with detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 had very low rates of reinfection over 6 months of follow-up in a longitudinal study from the United Kingdom, indicating substantial post-infection immunity in the months after primary infection.
The presence of positive anti-spike or anti-nucleocapsid IgG antibodies was associated with a dramatically reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among the cohort of just over 12,500 health care workers.
Among the 1,265 study participants who had confirmed anti-spike-seropositive at baseline, no symptomatic reinfections were reported and only 2 PCR-positive results were observed over up to 31 weeks of follow-up.
Dec 25, 2020
Children and teens hospitalized for Covid-19 have higher morbidity, mortality
Findings from a nationwide, retrospective cohort study from France, which compared hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 in the spring of 2020 to those from influenza during a seasonal outbreak the previous year, confirmed that Covid-19 is a far more serious and deadly disease.
Nearly twice as many Covid-19 hospitalizations were reported in March and April than influenza hospitalizations between Dec. 2018 and Feb. 2019, and deaths from Covid-19 were triple those reported for influenza during the respective periods.
Surprisingly, the researchers found that even though children and adolescents with Covid-19 had a lower risk for hospitalization than those with influenza, they had a higher risk for ICU admission and death.
Dec 18, 2020
Treatment approach has potential disease-free survival advantage
Patients with locally advanced rectal cancer treated with total neoadjuvant therapy followed by surgery had a higher chance of achieving a pathologic complete response than those treated with standard therapy involving concurrent chemotherapy followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy, a meta-analysis of 7 trials involving more than 2,400 patients revealed.
The pooled prevalence of pathologic complete response (PCR) was 29.9% in the total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT) patients and 14.9% in the standard treatment group.
Surgical outcomes, including rates of sphincter-preserving surgery and ileostomy, did not differ significantly between the two treatment groups, and just 3 studies included data on disease-free survival while none included data on overall survival.
Dec 15, 2020
Faster recovery reported with baricitinib/remdesivir therapy in ACTT-2
Among patients hospitalized for Covid-19, adding the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib to remdesivir was associated with reduced time to recovery and faster improvement in clinical status in a second phase of the pivotal Adaptive Covid-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT).
The median recovery time among hospitalized patients receiving remdesivir and baricitinib was 7 days in the ACTT-2 trial, compared to 8 days in patients treated with remdesivir and placebo.
The difference was most pronounced among patients receiving high-flow oxygen or non-invasive ventilation at enrollment. Median recovery times among these patients was 10 days in the dual active therapy group and 18 days in the remdesivir and placebo group.