Plasma therapy: a passive resistance against the deadliest

ABSTRACT

Convalescent plasma therapy provides a useful therapeutic tool to treat infectious diseases, especially where no specific therapeutic strategies have been identified. The ongoing pandemic puts back the spotlight on this age-old method as a viable treatment option. In this review, we discuss the usage of this therapy in different diseases including COVID-19, and the possible mechanisms of action. The current review also discusses the progress of therapeutic applications of blood-derivatives, from the simple transfer of immunized animal sera, to the more target-specific intravenous administration of human immunoglobulins from a pool of convalescent individuals, in both infectious and non-infectious diseases of various etiologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Convalescent plasma
• neutralizing antibodies (NAbs)
• intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG)

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our lab mates Dhrubajyoti Mahata, Debangshu Mukherjee, and Nidhi Pandey for their critical reading of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.