3 ms·
Could somebody with medical knowledge speak to the lifetime of exogenous antibodies in another person's blood? And, does their presence in any way "train" the
by fernly 7y ago
Could somebody with medical knowledge speak to the lifetime of exogenous antibodies in another person's blood?
And, does their presence in any way "train" the host immune system to make more? Or is the benefit solely from the introduced antibodies?
- ghufran_syed 7y agoThe half-life of exogenous antibodies is around one month: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3183495/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3183495/ The benefit is solely from the antibodies attacking and reducing the level of virus in the body, it does NOT induce an immune response from the body (though that will happen anyway as the body mounts it's normal immune response to the virus)
- rootusrootus 7y agoSo it does not interfere with the body's own immune response, and in the end the patient should be immune in their own right (for however long that lasts)? Almost sounds too good to be true. I wonder what the real downside risks are.
- maxerickson 7y agoWe used to use horse serum to treat infections. Inject the horse with the disease and then filter the antibodies out of the blood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiserum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiserum
- zaroth 7y agoIVIG is an extremely common treatment, used for immunocompromised patients, or sometimes after a stem cell transplant to bolster the immune system while it recovers. It’s not typically used in healthy adults as a way to treat a specific known pathogen because, well, we usually have much better options. Aside from being somewhat pricey, side effects are mild and it should be fairly effective.
- gus_massa 7y agoHow similar is this to the antibodies that are injected to a RH- mother just after the delivery of a RH+ baby to prevent the formation of their own antibodies that would attack the next baby? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho(D)_immune_globulin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rho(D)_immune_globulin
- wbl 7y agoA mismatch or a rare type would be disastrous. And let not even start on prion diseases.
- rsfern 7y agoInteresting — I wonder if that’s the reason the article says that one recovered persons plasma could treat just two additional patients? It’s not clear how much plasma would be needed for the treatment