The effect of convalescent plasma therapy in treating severe coronvirus disease 2019

Background: Since the outbreak globally of coronvirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), although active treatment has been taken, a large number of patients in severe condition have increased and clinical pressure is high. Convalescent plasma (CP) therapy is an important method of preventing and treating infectious diseases. antibody-rich blood is collected from recovered donors and then infused into other infected patients. So CP is a form of passive immunization. CP has been tried clinically and shown some effectiveness. Considering the absence of specific medicine for COVID-19, CP can be used as a potential therapy for COVID-19 patients. However, the curative effectiveness and safety of the CP for COVID-19 are still lacking evidence. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis protocol is planned to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the CP. Methods: This systematic search of articles will be indexed in nine databases: PubMed, Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, Wan-fang Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database. As well as the grey literature on other database for COVID-19 to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the CP. Two reviewers will independently conduct the primary screening of the articles and data extraction. And then, they will select eligible sources after discussing non-conformities. Search keywords will include convalescent plasma therapy, COVID-19, severe condition. Survival, Mortality, Viral load, and antibody level will be used as the main outcome. Length of hospital stay, and adverse events as the secondary outcome. This protocol will use RevMan5.3.5. Results: The results of this systematic review will provide the curative effectiveness and safety of the CP for COVID-19 with high-quality evidence currently. Conclusion: The conclusion of this systematic review will provide for judging whether CP benefits the severe COVID-19 patients. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval are not required for systematic review. Externally peer reviewed. PROSPERO registration number: PROSPERO CRD42020215456