Nucleocapsid Antigenemia in Patients Receiving Anti-CD20 Therapy With Protracted COVID-19

Eli Wilber; Anne Piantadosi; Ahmed Babiker; Kaleb McLendon; William O'Sick; Eric Fitts; Andrew S Webster; Hans Verkerke; James S Kim; Varun K Phadke; Nadine Rouphael; Boghuma K Titanji; William T Blake; Jessica Howard-Anderson; John D Roback; Wilbur A Lam; Gregory L Damhorst

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac419

Nucleocapsid Antigenemia in Patients Receiving Anti-CD20 Therapy With Protracted COVID-19

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Aug 17;9(8):ofac419. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac419. eCollection 2022 Aug.

Authors

Eli Wilber¹, Anne Piantadosi^{1

2}, Ahmed Babiker^{1

2}, Kaleb McLendon², William O'Sick², Eric Fitts², Andrew S Webster¹, Hans Verkerke^{2

3}, James S Kim⁴, Varun K Phadke¹, Nadine Rouphael¹, Boghuma K Titanji¹, William T Blake¹, Jessica Howard-Anderson¹, John D Roback², Wilbur A Lam^{2

5

6

7}, Gregory L Damhorst^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
² Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
³ Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
⁴ Division of Hospital Medicine, Department of Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁵ The Atlanta Center for Microsystems-Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁶ Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
⁷ Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Abstract

Immunocompromised patients with prolonged coronavirus disease 2019 symptoms present diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We measured viral nucleocapsid antigenemia in 3 patients treated with anti-CD20 immunotherapy who acquired severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection and experienced protracted symptoms. Our results support nucleocapsid antigenemia as a marker of persistent infection and therapeutic response.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; antigenemia; diagnostics; immunocompromised.

Abstract

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