Convalescent hyperimmune plasma for chemo-immunotherapy induced immunodeficiency in COVID-19 patients with hematological malignancies

Abstract

During the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak, patients with defective immunity after chemo-immunotherapy due to hematological disorders showed prolonged symptoms and worse prognosis of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia, probably due to inadequate adaptive immune response and noneffective viral clearance. We describe a single-center series of hematological immunocompromised patients undergoing passive immunization with hyperimmune plasma for persistent COVID-19 symptoms. In all cases, such treatment was well tolerated and contributed to clinical and radiological improvement and recovery; viral clearance was also achieved in a patients’ subset. Although requiring further investigation, these results suggest a specific role for hyperimmune plasma administration in hematological patients.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• hyperimmune plasma
• immunodeficiency
• onco-hematological patients

Author contributions

SF, CC, and AW performed research, collected, analyzed and interpreted clinical data and wrote the manuscript. SF, AR, and FL designed and supervised the research. All authors revised the manuscript and approved the final version before submission.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).