Los Angeles, Calif. – The AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), the world’s largest HIV research network whose focus has expanded to include evaluating outpatient treatment for COVID-19, will present two oral abstracts and one poster on COVID-19 studies at IDWeek 2022, taking place in Washington D.C. from October 19-22, 2022.
“IDWeek is an important opportunity for the ACTG to present our latest findings on COVID-19,” said ACTG Chair Judith Currier, M.D., MSc, of the University of California, Los Angeles. “These presentations are all from the ACTG’s ACTIV-2 platform, which sought to rapidly identify COVID-19 treatments and better understand the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2. These findings expand our understanding about several key aspects of COVID-19, including the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in different compartments, predictors of nasopharyngeal viral clearance, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels as predictors for clinical outcomes.”
ACTIV-2 is a randomized controlled adaptive platform that enabled the efficient testing of a variety of promising therapeutic agents for early COVID-19 within the same trial infrastructure. ACTIV-2 is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also funds the ACTG.
ACTG COVID-19 presentations at IDWeek 2022 include:
Nasal and plasma SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels predict timing of symptom resolution in the ACTIV-2 trial of non-hospitalized adults with COVID-19 (Friday, October 21, 11:00 a.m. E.T.); Oral session; Yijia Li, et al.
This study sought to understand the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 burden in the upper airway or plasma and the duration of COVID-19 symptoms. Among individuals with COVID-19 who did not receive treatment, participants with high anterior nasal and detectable plasma RNA at study entry were more likely to experience symptoms for a longer period of time.
Association between anterior nasal and plasma SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels and hospitalization or death for non-hospitalized adults with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 (Friday, October 21, 10:30 a.m. E.T.); Oral session; Mark J Giganti, et al.
This study sought to expand upon the limited data available regarding the performance of SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels as predictors or surrogate markers for clinical outcomes in outpatients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. Researchers found that anterior nasal and plasma SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels were predictive of hospitalization and death among participants who received placebo, but nasal viral levels explained only a small proportion of the beneficial treatment effect of monoclonal antibodies. Differing associations of nasal viral levels between monoclonal antibody and placebo recipients raise concerns about nasal RNA as a surrogate for clinical outcomes in monoclonal antibody trials.
Female sex and SARS-CoV-2 serostatus predict nasopharyngeal RNA clearance during early COVID-19 (Friday October 21, 12:15 p.m. E.T.); Poster session; Carlee Moser, et al.
This study sought to better characterize predictors of SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels and changes over time during early COVID-19. It found that shorter symptom duration, older age, white race, lower BMI and a lack of anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies were associated with higher RNA in early COVID-19 infection. Female sex and the presence of antibodies were associated with faster viral clearance.
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