Adverse Events Mild, Rare With mAb Treatment for COVID-19 in Pregnancy

TUESDAY, Nov. 15, 2022 (HealthDay News) — For pregnant persons with COVID-19, adverse events after monoclonal antibody (mAb) treatment are mild and occur rarely, according to a study published online Nov. 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Erin K. McCreary, Pharm.D., from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues conducted a retrospective propensity score-matched cohort study involving 944 pregnant persons with any documented positive severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 test to examine adverse events and effectiveness of mAbs versus no mAb treatment. Fifty-eight percent of the participants received mAb treatment.

The researchers found that drug-related adverse events were uncommon (1.4 percent). For the 778 persons who delivered, no differences were seen in any obstetric-associated outcome. The risk ratio for the composite 28-day COVID-19-associated outcome was 0.71 for mAb treatment (95 percent confidence interval, 0.37 to 1.4) in the total population. The risk ratio was 0.61 after propensity score matching (95 percent confidence interval, 0.34 to 1.1). No deaths were reported among mAb-treated patients compared with one death among nontreated persons. More non-COVID-19-related hospital admissions occurred in the mAb-treated cohort compared with the untreated cohort (2.5 versus 0.5 percent; risk ratio, 5.0; 95 percent confidence interval, 1.1 to 21.7); after propensity score matching, however, no difference was seen in the rates (2.5 versus 2 percent; risk ratio, 1.3; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.58 to 2.8).

“In a cohort study of 944 pregnant persons, drug-related adverse events after mAb treatment were rare and there was no difference in obstetric-associated outcomes among persons who delivered,” the authors write.

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