Becker's Hospital Review

81 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Why hospitals quietly ended convalescent plasma treatments By Mackenzie Bean E arly in the pandemic, the U.S. im- plemented a major effort to use convalescent plasma as an ex- perimental treatment for COVID-19. Evidence about the treatment's effica- cy has been underwhelming, spurring many hospitals to abandon their plas- ma treatment programs, reported The New York Times. The U.S. invested about $800 million in this effort and distributed more than 722,000 units of plasma via a federal program ending in April. Many patients received plasma outside of clinical tri- als, which delayed researchers' ability to study and understand its effectiveness, according to the April 17 Times article. But, accumulating research suggests there is not strong evidence to support the plasma's continued use. "The data are just not that strong, and it makes it makes it hard, I think, to be enthusiastic about seeing it continue to be used," H. Clifford Lane, MD, dep- uty director for clinical research and special projects at the National Insti- tute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Times. Some health systems, including Chica- go-based Rush University Medical Cen- ter and Cleveland Clinic, have mostly stopped using the treatment. New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System — one of the first two systems to use convalescent plasma for COVID-19 pa- tients in March 2020 — has also stopped giving the treatment outside of clinical trials, citing a growing body of studies suggesting it has no benefit. "That's what science is — it's a process of abandoning your old hypotheses in favor of a better hypothesis," Nicole M. Bouvier, MD, an infectious-disease physician who helped set up Mount Sinai's convalescent plasma program, told the Times. "That's just the way the cookie crumbles." n Still not enough antibiotics in the works to fight superbugs, WHO says By Mackenzie Bean T he world has not made significant progress in developing new antibiotics to fight drug-resistant infections, the World Health Organization said in an April report. e organization published its fourth annual review of antibiotics currently in development across the globe April 16. Four report findings: 1. Forty-three antibiotics are in development worldwide, 26 of which target the WHO's "priority pathogens" deemed to pose the greatest threat to human health. Of these, only two are active against critical multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria, the report found. 2. Another 12 antibiotics in development are active against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and five address Clostridioides difficile. 3. Of the 11 antibiotics approved by the FDA or European Medicines Agency since 2017, nine are from existing antibiotic classes where resistance is either already occurring or predicted. ese treatments pose limited clinical benefits over existing treatments, the WHO said. 4. e analysis also revealed a lack of oral antibiotic options for multidrug-resistant infections, which would allow for shorter treatment durations or treatment outside of healthcare facilities. n No link between blood type and COVID-19 risk, study finds By Erica Carbajal A person's blood type likely does not contribute to their risk of con- tracting COVID-19 or of developing a severe infection, according to a study published April 5 in JAMA Network Open. Researchers from Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare analyzed the outcomes of 107,796 people who tested positive for COVID-19 between March 3 and Nov. 3, 2020, and who had their blood type documented in their EHR. "We had read a few mostly smaller early studies that indicated patients with type A blood fared worse with COVID-19 and those with type O fared bet- ter," Jeffrey Anderson, MD, lead study author and cardiologist at Intermoun- tain, said in a news release sent to Becker's. "So, instead of studying a few hundred patients, we looked at more than 100,000 patients tested at Inter- mountain Healthcare facilities, and found no relationship between a person's blood type and their susceptibility to COVID-19 or whether they needed hospitalization or [intensive care unit] care." Similar to other findings, their analysis instead found men were more likely to test positive and had an increased risk for severe disease, as well as non- white patients and older patients. "All of these demographic factors are consistent with what we've seen around the world, which gives us confidence in our database and these results for blood type," Dr. Anderson said. n

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