Objective: To investigate the role of Convalescent Plasma (CP) in reducing mortality of COVID-19 patients.
Materials and methods: A systematic literature search was conducted from PubMed, Embase, Medrxiv, and Google Scholar from April and finalized in December 2020 using the following terms: covid-19, convalescent plasma, cp, ccp, copla. The studies were screened, extracted, and evaluated by two authors independently. Comparative retrospective or prospective studies with a control group were included. Mortality was defined as the outcome of interest. Research articles not published in the English language, not available in full text, review articles, no measured outcome of interest were excluded from this study.
Results: Eighteen studies were included in this meta-analysis. There were 5658 patients with 2092 patients treated with CP and 3536 patients as a control group. Forest plot showed CP use was associated with decreased mortality with OR = 0.64 (95% CI 0.49 to 0.84, p<0.001) and heterogeneity (I2)= 27.62%. Few patients experienced an adverse event, but no fatal case was reported.
Conclusions: Convalescent plasma is effective in reducing mortality of severe and critical COVID-19 with tolerable adverse effects.