Aussie trial confirms convalescent plasma is 'futile' for critically ill COVID-19 patients

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-10-05 11:30

Australia; International; NSW; VIC

A global trial, which included Australian hospitals, has confirmed that blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19, so-called convalescent plasma, does not shorten the amount of time COVID-19 patients spend on life support. The study concludes that the probability that the treatment is futile is 99.4 per cent. The authors say the results of this trial are consistent with the lack of benefit reported in the RECOVERY trial, and in a previous systematic review.

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conference: JAMA

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Organisation/s: Monash University, Western Sydney University, Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, John Radcliffe Hospital, UK

Funder: This platform trial has 4 regional nonprofit sponsors: Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (Australasian sponsor); Utrecht Medical Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands (European sponsor); St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Canadian sponsor); and the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research, San Francisco, California (US sponsor). This study was additionally funded by grant 602525 FP7-health-2013-innovation-1 from the European Union Platform for European Preparedness Against Reemerging Epidemics, grants APP1101719 and APP1116530 from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, grant APP2002132 from the Australian Medical Research Future Fund, grant 16/631 from the New Zealand Health Research Council, grant 447335 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research COVID-19 Rapid Research, grant 158584 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research Innovative Clinical Trials Program, grant CTN 2014-012 from the Health Research Board of Ireland, grant PHRC-20-0147 from the French Ministry of Health, and grant 215522 from the Wellcome Trust Innovations Project and funding from the National Institute for Health Research, the Department of Health and Social Care, the EU Programme Emergency Support Instrument, the NHS Blood and Transplant Research and Development Programme, the National Institute for Health Research, the National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, the UPMC Learning While Doing Program, the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium, the Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Minderoo Foundation. The Australian government funds the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood for the provision of blood products and services. The collection of plasma in the United Kingdom was funded by European Union SoHo grants from the Department of Health and Social Care. Dr Turgeon is the Canada Research Chair in Critical Care Neurology and Trauma. Dr McQuilten is supported by emerging leader fellowship APP194811 from the National Health and Medical Research Council. Dr Gordon is funded by research professorship 2015-06-18 from the National Institute for Health Research. Dr Shankar-Hari is funded by clinician scientist fellowship 2016-16-011 from the National Institute for Health Research.

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