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Even Dialysis Patients Can Maintain COVID Antibodies for Months

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“The vast majority of dialysis patients infected with COVID-19 maintained antibodies for at least 6 months, a new study found.

In a prospective analysis of over 2,000 adults on dialysis, 93% of seroprevalent patients reached an assay detectable response — a SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) IgG index value of 1 or higher — and maintained this level throughout a 6-month follow-up, reported Shuchi Anand, MD, of Stanford University in California, and colleagues.

On top of that, 60% of patients had IgG index values of 10 or greater — classified as high — the group wrote in Annals of Internal Medicine. Of these patients, 76% maintained this antibody level throughout the 6-month follow-up.”

Read more, here.

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What Evidence Do We Need to Move Forward With COVID Boosters?

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“More data and an evaluation of several factors at home and abroad are key.

On Monday, employees of Pfizer met with high level executives in the Biden administration to discuss the role of boosters — a.k.a. a third vaccination with an mRNA vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Some have speculated that, as with the first two doses, the emergency use authorization pathway will again be used to market boosters. With the rise of the Delta variant and others, enthusiasm in the media and the Twitter commentariat for boosters is growing. However, there are certain criteria that must be met before we jump on the booster bandwagon. Some of these criteria apply at home, and others apply abroad.”

Learn more, here.

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Factors ID’d for COVID-19 Infection Risk in Dialysis Patients

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“For individuals receiving in-center hemodialysis, the risk for having a positive test for infection or admission with suspected COVID-19 is associated with age, diabetes, local community COVID-19 rates, and dialysis unit size, according to a study published online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Ben Caplin, MBChB, PhD, from University College London, and colleagues explored the role of variables such as community disease burden, dialysis unit attributes, and infection control strategies among patients receiving in-center hemodialysis between March 2 and May 31, 2020. Data were included for 5755 patients receiving dialysis in 51 units. Outcomes were defined as a positive test for infection or admission to the hospital with suspected COVID-19.”

Read more, here.

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Q&A: Transplant Patient Immune Response to COVID-19 Vaccines

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CareDx and the Lung Transplant Foundation hosted  the “COVID-19 Vaccines and the Latest Data on Immune Response in Transplant Recipients” webinar on May 12, 2021. More than 1,000 transplant recipients, caregivers, and clinicians tuned in to the live webinar to hear the latest research on the immune response of transplant recipients to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Dorry Segev, MD, PhD, a transplant surgeon from Johns Hopkins Medicine, and one of the authors of a recently published study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that looked at the antibody response in more than 650 transplant patients, presented findings and answered questions.

Below is a summary of some of the questions posed during the session.

Read the full Q&A, here.

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Organ donations held almost steady during the pandemic, as the U.S. transplant system scrambled to keep going

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“This is not a pandemic “silver lining” story.

This is a could-have-been-far-worse story about how the pandemic did not fuel a catastrophe in transplantation or worsen the persistent gap between people who need organs and the donations that supply them. But just as the pandemic is not over yet, neither is the potential danger of related ramifications for people whose organs may fail and need replacement.

Covid-19’s first surge last year flooded hospitals in the United States and nearly drowned those in the Northeast. They couldn’t find enough personal protective equipment for beleaguered workers, they didn’t yet have reliable testing for patients or staff, and they couldn’t know when the nightmare might end. Within that maelstrom, many transplants had to be put on hold: How do you perform life-saving operations when the supply of already scarce donor organs nose-dives?”

Read more, here.

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Monoclonal Antibodies Safe for Organ Recipients with Covid-19

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Solid organ transplant recipients with mild-to-moderate Covid-19 can be safely treated with monoclonal antibody therapy, a new study confirmed.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, reported that monoclonal antibody treatment was associated with favorable outcomes with minimal side effects in the first solid organ transplant patients to receive the infusions for Covid-19 at their center.

None of the 73 patients died, required mechanical ventilation, or experienced organ rejection.

Eleven of the patients (15%) had emergency department visits within 28 days of monoclonal antibody infusion, including 9 who were hospitalized for a median of 4 days. Just one patient required ICU admission for a non-Covid-19 indication.

Read more, here.

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Your Healthy Family: Lung Transplants Increased for COVID-19 Patients During the Pandemic

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Hospitals across the country have reported a rise in lung transplants for patients with severe cases of COVID-19, and that’s created new challenges for doctors along the way.

“COVID-19 has really struck the transplant community in a very unique way, from the donor side of things to the recipient side of things. So we’ve had to think about the donors that we are taking to transplant. And for a while there, we thought donor activity would actually become an issue and that we wouldn’t have enough donors,” said Marie Budev, MD, medical director of lung transplantation for Cleveland Clinic.

Read more, here.

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A 3rd Dose Of COVID Vaccines May Boost Immunity For Transplant Recipients

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A small new study offers a glimmer of hope that giving organ transplant recipients a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine could boost their protection against the coronavirus.

That’s important because prior research has shown that nearly half of organ transplant recipients failed to show any antibody response even after two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

And even in transplant recipients who showed an antibody response to vaccination, that response was often more muted than in people with healthy immune systems. That has led doctors to advise these patients not to assume that vaccination equals immunity. More than 400,000 people in the U.S. are living with organ transplants, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

Read more, here.

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