Name: COVID-19 plasma trial at UW-Madison shows treatment helped 94% of severely ill patients avoid ICU or ventilation
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COVID-19 plasma trial at UW-Madison shows treatment helped 94% of severely ill patients avoid ICU or ventilation

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Milwaukee Journal SentinelPatients with severe or&nbsp;life-threatening COVID-19 have fared well so far in two clinical trials underway at&nbsp;the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to preliminary results.The&nbsp;university&nbsp;also launched&nbsp;three new&nbsp;COVID-19 clinical trials&nbsp;and began&nbsp;considering offers to host another nine. Since the coronavirus clinical trials began,&nbsp;80% of all UW Health patients with COVID-19&nbsp;have been enrolled in one.More:More:In one&nbsp;trial&nbsp;already underway, UW researchers reported encouraging results from&nbsp;31 people hospitalized with COVID-19&nbsp;and&nbsp;treated with&nbsp;plasma from recovered patients. Four of those treated have died, but 94% of the patients who were considered severely ill avoided having to go to intensive care&nbsp;or&nbsp;being placed on mechanical ventilation.About 67% of those with life-threatening illness recovered sufficiently&nbsp;to&nbsp;have their breathing tubes removed."The Madison group began to use plasma earlier (than others) and they've had very good results," said Arturo Casadevall, one of the leaders behind the national effort to launch&nbsp;clinical trials of survivor plasma. Casadevall is&nbsp;chairman of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.To date more than 38,000 COVID-19 patients in the U.S. have received infusions of survivor plasma.The UW results,&nbsp;announced in an unpublished preprint&nbsp;on the web site medRxiv, led researchers to conclude that plasma helps patients avoid mechanical ventilation, though "it appears to be most beneficial when administered early in the course of the disease."In another trial, the first two UW Health patients were&nbsp;treated with a drug called ruxolitinib that is being tested on some&nbsp;of the most critically ill, those facing a&nbsp;life-threatening overreaction of the immune system. Both&nbsp;patients recovered sufficiently to be discharged from the hospital."So far, so good," said&nbsp;David Andes, a UW professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases, who is&nbsp;leading the Madison portion of the ruxolitinib trial.The encouraging results came on a week when UW Health&nbsp;announced that it will host&nbsp;three new trials&nbsp;testing cocktails of lab-manufactured antibodies against COVID-19. The cocktails have been made by the drug company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Tarrytown, N.Y.The two monoclonal antibodies in the cocktail are highly potent, but do not compete with each other, said William Hartman,&nbsp;UW Health assistant professor of anesthesiology. The&nbsp;antibodies were the most potent to emerge from tests involving&nbsp;plasma from recovered&nbsp;COVID-19 patients and from&nbsp;mice engineered to have human immune systems, then infected with the disease.More:Hartman compared the approach to not using all of the players from the six-time NBA&nbsp;championship-winning Chicago Bulls, but bringing in only superstars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.The three&nbsp;trials involve the using&nbsp;antibody cocktail on patients of differing conditions. One group involves patients who are sick with COVID-19, but not at a point where they might need an infusion of plasma. A second group consists of&nbsp;patients who have tested positive and have symptoms, but have not had to be hospitalized.The third group is limited to&nbsp;people&nbsp;at high risk of getting COVID-19 because they are living with or caring for a patient with the disease."We're in the process of enrolling patients now," Hartman said. Each of the three trials will involve&nbsp;35 to 50 people.&nbsp;The announcement means the university is now&nbsp;involved in&nbsp;a total of five trials of potential treatments for the deadly pandemic that has killed more than 137,000 Americans and&nbsp;580,000 worldwide. The university is also preparing to become a&nbsp;site for a&nbsp;vaccine trial that hasn't yet started.Betsy Nugent, chief clinical research officer at UW Health, said the university has been aggressively&nbsp;seeking to become a hub for COVID-19 clinical trials."I think it's critical.&nbsp;In a time when we don't have a known treatment for the disease, clinical trials become the&nbsp;default treatment," she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Milwaukee Journal SentinelPatients with severe or&nbsp;life-threatening COVID-19 have fared well so far in two clinical trials underway at&nbsp;the University of Wisconsin-Madison, according to preliminary results.The&nbsp;university&nbsp;also launched&nbsp;three new&nbsp;COVID-19 clinical trials&nbsp;and began&nbsp;considering offers to host another nine. Since the coronavirus clinical trials began,&nbsp;80% of all UW Health patients with COVID-19&nbsp;have been enrolled in one.More:More:In one&nbsp;trial&nbsp;already underway, UW researchers reported encouraging results from&nbsp;31...

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COVID-19 plasma trial at UW-Madison shows treatment helped 94% of severely ill patients avoid ICU or ventilation

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