Plasma Therapy

Novel coronavirus causes the outbreak of COVID-19. There is still no verified treatment regimen against this novel virus; however, different drugs and compounds have been tested against it. Ample proposals have led to a good understanding of pathogenesis and drug efficacy against the novel virus disease. Excess systemic inflammation, which is described as cytokine storm, in the severe cases of COVID-19 can pass through the blood-brain barrier, enter the brain tissue, and activate the microglial cells and oligodenritcytes. Activation of the microglia cells and oligodenritcytes can increase generation of reactive oxygen species in the brain. Excess generation of reactive oxygen species can in turn increase neuroinflammation in some cases of patients with COVID-19. Treatment of COVID-19 is far from clear. Today, some antiviral drugs such as remdisivir, favipiravir, ribavirin, kaletra, and arbidol are being tested against the disease. Besides these drugs, corticosteroids, anti-malaria drugs (such as chloroquine family), anticoagulants (such as heparin or enoxaparin) are repurposed. In this paper, first we explained the pathogenesis of COVID-19 particles, particularly in the brain. Second, we reviewed recent treatment options up to now, including interferon therapy, convalescent plasma exchange, plasmapheresis, immunoglobin therapy, and use of specified monoclonal anti-bodies in COVID-19 patients.

The study evaluates the global research output (820 records) on “Use of Convalescent Plasma Therapy for COVID-19” on metrics with the aim to understand the current status of research at the global, national, institutional, and individual author level. The study is based on publications and citations data sourced from the Scopus database during 2020-21. The publications and citations data was statistically analyzed on various metrics such as document type, country of publication, collaboration patterns, author affiliation, journal name, and citation patterns. The USA, China and India lead the world ranking of 15 most productive countries in the subject. China, U.K. and Netherlands lead in the ranking of most cited countries. In addition, the study maps key productive institutions, key authors, key source journals, as well as most significant keywords in the subject to visually present their inter-relationships using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer software. This results and findings from the study describe the progress made by the world in this hot area of global interest.