Mayo Clinic patients who received a monoclonal antibody infusion to treat COVID-19 had a better chance of recovering without the need for a hospital stay than patients who were not treated with the therapy, a new study finds.
Among nearly 1,400 high-risk patients, half received a casirivimab and imdevimab cocktail made by Regeneron. The combo is United States-approved under emergency use authorization for use in mild to moderate COVID-19. More recently, it was authorized for prevention after exposure to infected contacts.
All patients were evaluated at 14, 21 and 28 days after treatment. As the weeks went by, the number of hospitalizations trended lower in the treated group, Raymund Razonable, M.D., an infectious diseases specialist, reported.
At 28 days, 1.6% of those treated were hospitalized when compared with 4.8% of those who had not been treated. This translated to a 60%-70% relative reduction in hospitalization among the treated patients, Razonable and colleagues noted. Patients who were treated but hospitalized had much lower relative rates of intensive care unit admission and mortality, he added.
“Once again, this real-world study suggests that when patients who are at high risk due to a range of comorbidities contract a mild or moderate case of COVID-19, this combination of monoclonal injections gives them a chance of a nonhospitalized recovery. In other words, they recover safely at home,” Razonable said in a statement.
“[M]onoclonal antibodies are an important option in treatment to reduce the impact of COVID-19 in high-risk patients,” he concluded.
The findings appear in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine.
Dr. Raymund Razonable – Monoclonal antibody treatment can help high risk patients with COVID-19
