Successful Early Use of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Monoclonal Neutralizing Antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 Infected Hematological Patients - A Czech Multicenter Experience
Abstract
COVID-19 significantly impairs survival rates among hematological patients when compared to the general population. Our prospective multicentre project analyzed early administration of anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike protein neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (NmAbs) - bamlanivimab (72%) and casirivimab / imdevimab (28%) - efficacy among hematological patients with early-stage COVID-19.
Mortality rate was compared to a control cohort of 575 SARS-CoV-2 positive hematological patients untreated with any specific anti-COVID-19 therapy. 88 hematological patients with lymphomas, acute leukemias, and myeloma as their most frequent underlying diagnoses (72%) were evaluated with a 97 day median follow-up after NmAb administration. One third of patients (32%) were treated with an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody before COVID-19 diagnosis.
Median time between first COVID-19 symptom and NmAb administration was 2 days. When administering NmAb, 29%, 57%, 11%, 2%, and 1% of our patients had asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical degrees of COVID-19, respectively. 80% of baseline asymptomatic patients remained asymptomatic following NmAb administration.
Median duration of COVID-19 symptoms after NmAb administration was 2.5 days. Progression to severe/critical COVID-19 occurred among a total of 17% (15/88) of our cases and numerically higher with bamlanivimab vs. casirivimab / imdevimab (21% vs. 8%; p=0.215), and myelomas (29%), lymphomas (17%) and acute leukemias (18%), respectively.
During final follow-up, nine deaths (10%) were recorded - all after bamlanivimab (p=0.056) with 8% attributed to COVID-19. Regarding "remdesivir / convalescent plasma (CP) naïve" patients, COVID-19 mortality rates were significantly lower in our NmAbs treated cohort compared to the control cohort of untreated SARS-CoV-2 positive hematological patients (6% vs. 16%, p=0.020), respectively.
Our study validated the safety and efficacy of NmAbs early use among hematological patients with newly diagnosed early-stage COVID-19 in terms of alleviating infection course and decreasing mortality. Results confirmed a more positive effect of a casirivimab / imdevimab combination versus bamlanivimab monotherapy.