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Background and objectives: Management of severe allergic transfusion reactions (ATR) is challenging. In this study, we investigate the usefulness of skin tests and basophil activation tests (BAT) in chronically transfused patients for the prevention of future ATR. Materials and methods: BAT and skin tests were carried with the supernatant of red blood cell (RBC) units for a sickle-cell disease patient under chronic exchange transfusion who has presented a severe ATR, in order to prevent potential future ATR. If the results for both BAT and skin tests were negative, the RBC units could be transfused to the patient. If either one of the results was positive, the tested RBC unit was discarded for the patient. Results: 192 RBC units were tested with both tests. The level of results concordance between the two tests was 95%. Out of the 169 negative units with both tests, 118 units were transfused to the patient for which he presented no ATR. Conclusion: In our study, combining both BAT and skin tests was associated with a good negative predictive value since we were able to safely transfuse our patient. Further studies are still necessary to confirm this result but this pilot study indicates that skin tests and BAT might help prevent ATR. When BAT is not available, skin tests may also be useful in preventing ATR., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Zinc deficiency is associated with impaired antiviral response, cytokine releasing syndrome (CRS), and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Notably, similar complications are being observed during severe SARS-CoV-2 infection. We conducted a prospective, single-center, observational study in a tertiary university hospital (CUB-Hôpital Erasme, Brussels) to address the zinc status, the association between the plasma zinc concentration, development of CRS, and the clinical outcomes in PCR-confirmed and hospitalized COVID-19 patients. One hundred and thirty-nine eligible patients were included between May 2020 and November 2020 (median age of 65 years [IQR = 54, 77]). Our cohort's median plasma zinc concentration was 57 µg/dL (interquartile range [IQR] = 45, 67) compared to 74 µg/dL (IQR = 64, 84) in the retrospective non-COVID-19 control group (N = 1513; p < 0.001). Markedly, the absolute majority of COVID-19 patients (96%) were zinc deficient (<80 µg/dL). The median zinc concentration was lower in patients with CRS compared to those without CRS (-5 µg/dL; 95% CI = -10.5, 0.051; p = 0.048). Among the tested outcomes, zinc concentration is significantly correlated with only the length of hospital stay (rho = -0.19; p = 0.022), but not with mortality or morbidity. As such, our findings do not support the role of zinc as a robust prognostic marker among hospitalized COVID-19 patients who in our cohort presented a high prevalence of zinc deficiency. It might be more beneficial to explore the role of zinc as a biomarker for assessing the risk of developing a tissue-damaging CRS and predicting outcomes in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at the early stage of the disease., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published