Patients with hematological malignancies (HM) continue to face COVID-19 as a pertinent problem. In those receiving active medical treatment, vaccinations have no effect.
In the multicenter retrospective study, researchers collected data from 91 paucisymptomatic HM patients treated with anti-spike neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (nMoAbs) to determine the time to viral clearance, referencing it to the expected value of 28 days from a historical group of untreated paucisymptomatic patients. Intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate, COVID-19-related fatality rate, and safety were considered secondary goals.
About 86 patients (95%), with a median of 18 days (IQR 13-26; P<0.0001), were found to have SARS-CoV-2 molecular swab negative. Age, diagnosis, type of therapy, the status of immunization, and nMoAbs type did not show any significant differences. COVID-19 progression caused a 12% (11/91) hospitalization rate, with 2 patients (2.2%) necessitating ICU admission. The total mortality was 5.5% (5/91), with a median follow-up of 2.33 months, with 3 fatalities attributed to COVID-19. There were very few minor side effects.
The findings indicated that nMoAbs could reduce the negative impact of immunosuppressive therapies on the clinical development of COVID-19 and the time to viral clearance.
Reference: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjh.18385
