Trial reportBMC infectious diseases2022
Convalescent or standard plasma versus standard of care in the treatment of COVID-19 patients with respiratory impairment: short and long-term effects. A three-arm randomized controlled clinical trial.
Trial report in BMC infectious diseases, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04428021 (Effectiveness of Adding Standard Plasma or COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma to Standard Treatment, Versus Standard Treatment Alone, in Patients With Recent Onset of COVID-19 Respiratory Failure. A Randomized, Three-arms, Phase 2 Trial), which is not on this map. Cited by 8 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Effectiveness of Adding Standard Plasma or COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma to Standard Treatment, Versus Standard Treatment Alone, in Patients With Recent Onset of COVID-19 Respiratory Failure. A Randomized, Three-arms, Phase 2 Trial
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Timing, Titre, and Host Determinants of Convalescent Plasma Efficacy in COVID-19: A Systematic Review With Design-Stratified Narrative Synthesis.Reviews in medical virology · 2026Pooled it
- Convalescent plasma for people with COVID-19.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2026Pooled it
- Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Randomized Controlled Trials.Viruses · 2023Pooled it
- Predictors of ICU Length of Stay in Patients with Severe Pneumonia: A Six-Year Retrospective Cohort Study Focusing on Traditional Chinese Medicine Adjuvant Therapy.International journal of general medicine · 2026Article
- Avoided and Avoidable Deaths with the Use of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma in Italy during the First Two Years of Pandemic.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Insights and innovations in Blood Transfusion.Blood transfusion = Trasfusione del sangue · 2024Article
- Exploring Study Design Foibles in Randomized Controlled Trials on Convalescent Plasma in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Effects of remdesivir on SARS-CoV-2 viral dynamics and mortality in viraemic patients hospitalized for COVID-19.The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
55 authors at 20 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe efficacy of early treatment with convalescent plasma in patients with COVID-19 is debated. Nothing is known about the potential effect of other plasma components other than anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
methodsTo determine whether convalescent or standard plasma would improve outcomes for adults in early phase of Covid19 respiratory impairment we designed this randomized, three-arms, clinical trial (PLACO COVID) blinded on interventional arms that was conducted from June 2020 to August 2021. It was a multicentric trial at 19 Italian hospitals. We enrolled 180 hospitalized adult patients with COVID-19 pneumonia within 5 days from the onset of respiratory distress. Patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1:1 ratio to standard of care (n = 60) or standard of care + three units of standard plasma (n = 60) or standard of care + three units of high-titre convalescent plasma (n = 60) administered on days 1, 3, 5 after randomization. Primary outcome was 30-days mortality. Secondary outcomes were: incidence of mechanical ventilation or death at day 30, 6-month mortality, proportion of days with mechanical ventilation on total length of hospital stay, IgG anti-SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion, viral clearance from plasma and respiratory tract samples, and variations in Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score. The trial was analysed according to the intention-to-treat principle.
results180 patients (133/180 [73.9%] males, mean age 66.6 years [IQR 57-73]) were enrolled a median of 8 days from onset of symptoms. At enrollment, 88.9% of patients showed moderate/severe respiratory failure. 30-days mortality was 20% in Control arm, 23% in Convalescent (risk ratio [RR] 1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-2.13, P = 0.694) and 25% in Standard plasma (RR 1.23; 95%CI, 0.63-2.37, P = 0.544). Time to viral clearance from respiratory tract was 21 days for Convalescent, 28 for Standard plasma and 23 in Control arm but differences were not statistically significant. No differences for other secondary endpoints were seen in the three arms. Serious adverse events were reported in 1.7%, 3.3% and 5% of patients in Control, Standard and Convalescent plasma arms respectively.
conclusionsNeither high-titer Convalescent nor Standard plasma improve outcomes of COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory failure. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT04428021. First posted: 11/06/2020.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.