Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

MULTIPLE MYELOMA, GAMMOPATHIES

Convalescent plasma for patients with multiple myeloma and COVID-19; the European Myeloma Network consensus

Leukemia volume 37, pages 1939–1940 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

We thank Dr Focosi and Dr Franchini for their correspondence [1] to our manuscript on the management of patients with multiple myeloma and COVID-19 in the post-pandemic era [2]. Convalescent plasma has emerged as a promising treatment for COVID-19 since the early era of COVID-19 pandemic [3]. Although the pathophysiological basis for this therapeutic approach is well-established [4], there are no robust clinical data advocating for its use in patients with multiple myeloma or in other immunocompromised patients and COVID-19. Indeed, the National Institutes of Health of the USA, in its last update (December 2022), supports that available data are insufficient to make a recommendation on the use of high-titer convalescent plasma in non-hospitalized immunocompromised patients with COVID-19, whereas it recommends against the use of convalescent plasma in immunocompetent hospitalized patents (https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antivirals-including-antibody-products/covid-19-convalescent-plasma/). Furthermore, in December 2021 (last update in this issue), the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends against convalescent plasma use for non-severe COVID-19, while it recommends its use only within clinical trials for severe and critical COVID-19 patients (https://www.who.int/news/item/07-12-2021-who-recommends-against-the-use-of-convalescent-plasma-to-treat-covid-19).

Thus, our consensus was that “High-titer convalescent plasma may improve patient outcomes; however, it is extremely difficult to have convalescent plasma against the novel mutants and thus its value is debatable in the post-pandemic era” [2]. We fully agree that there are studies where convalescent donors have heterologous hybrid immunity but there are also reports suggesting that even both convalescent and fully vaccinated (including the bivalent vaccine) individuals have lower XBB.1.5 neutralizing antibodies compared to BQ.1.1 [5]. Furthermore, a possible hybrid immunity of convalescent donors does not prove the value of convalescent plasma collected in different time-points for treatment of myeloma patients or other immunocompromised patients with COVID-19 caused by mutants like BQ.1.1 or XBB1.16.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Focosi D, Franchini M. COVID-19 convalescent plasma retains value for immunocompromised patients. Leukemia. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-023-01939-4.

  2. Terpos E, Musto P, Engelhardt M, Delforge M, Cook G, Gay F, et al. Management of patients with multiple myeloma and COVID-19 in the post pandemic era: a consensus paper from the European Myeloma Network (EMN). Leukemia. 2023;37:1175–85.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Filippatos C, Ntanasis-Stathopoulos I, Sekeri K, Ntanasis-Stathopoulos A, Gavriatopoulou M, Psaltopoulou T, et al. Convalescent plasma therapy for COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis on randomized controlled trials. Viruses. 2023;15:765.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Sullivan DJ, Franchini M, Senefeld JW, Joyner MJ, Casadevall A, Focosi D. Plasma after both SARS-CoV-2 boosted vaccination and COVID-19 potently neutralizes BQ.1.1 and XBB.1. J Gen Virol. 2023;104:001854.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Devasundaram S, Terpos E, Rosati M, Ntanasis-Stathopoulos I, Bear J, Burns R, et al. XBB.1.5 neutralizing antibodies upon bivalent COVID-19 vaccination are similar to XBB but lower than BQ.1.1. Am J Hematol. 2023;98:E123–6.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Denkinger CM, Janssen M, Schäkel U, Gall J, Leo A, Stelmach P, et al. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody-containing plasma improves outcome in patients with hematologic or solid cancer and severe COVID-19: a randomized clinical trial. Nat Cancer. 2023;4:96–107.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Therapeutics, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Evangelos Terpos & Ioannis Ntanasis-Stathopoulos

  2. Department of Precision and Regenerative Medicine and Ionian Area, “Aldo Moro” University School of Medicine, Bari, Italy

    Pellegrino Musto

  3. Unit of Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation, AOUC Policlinico, Bari, Italy

    Pellegrino Musto

  4. Department of Hematology and Oncology, Interdisciplinary Cancer Center and Comprehensive Cancer Center Freiburg, University of Freiburg, Faculty of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Monika Engelhardt

  5. Department of Hematology, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Pieter Sonneveld

  6. Wilhelminen Cancer Research Institute, First Department of Medicine, Center for Oncology, Hematology, and Palliative Care, Clinic Ottakring, Vienna, Austria

    Heinz Ludwig

Authors
  1. Evangelos Terpos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pellegrino Musto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Monika Engelhardt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ioannis Ntanasis-Stathopoulos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Pieter Sonneveld
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Heinz Ludwig
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

ET and INS prepared the first draft of the manuscript. All authors revised critically the manuscript and agreed to the final version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Evangelos Terpos.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Terpos, E., Musto, P., Engelhardt, M. et al. Convalescent plasma for patients with multiple myeloma and COVID-19; the European Myeloma Network consensus. Leukemia 37, 1939–1940 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-023-01974-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-023-01974-1

Search

Advanced search

Quick links