Elliott Bennett-Guerrero, MD, is a leader in clinical trials involving surgical patients. Since 2015, he has served as a professor and vice chairman of Stony Brook Medicine's department of anesthesiology. Dr. Elliott Bennett-Guerrero spearheaded a research study by Stony Brook Medicine to see if administration of convalescent plasma from COVID-19 survivors' could treat patients hospitalized with COVID-19. The researchers studied the use of convalescent therapy for COVID-19 treatment not long after the emergence of the pandemic and published their results in Critical Care Medicine.
Convalescent plasma therapy is a treatment approach for some infectious diseases. Convalescent plasma therapy involves extracting blood plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 infection. Blood plasma is the clear (somewhat yellow) fluid in which red blood cells and blood platelets are suspended. Plasma contains antibodies that provide a natural/endogenous defense against infectious diseases. The body produces different types of antibodies in response to different infectious invaders, and the antibodies delay the progression of the infection and can destroy the infectious agent. Extracting convalescent plasma for COVID-19 involves collecting blood from recovered individuals, separating the red blood cells and platelets from the plasma, returning the red blood cells and platelets into the individual's circulatory system, and storing the plasma in a controlled environment (freezer or refrigerator depending on storage life) to preserve the antibodies within it. Convalescent plasma must be free of infectious agents, e.g. hepatitis virus, to prevent infecting the recipient. When the plasma is injected into a patient with an infection, it is postulated that the antibodies within the plasma can facilitate the patient's immune system to fight the infection better, fostering recovery and preventing further complications from the infection.
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AuthorDr. Elliott Bennett-Guerrero is both an educator and a vice chairman at Stony Brook Medicine. Archives
June 2022
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