COVID-19 significantly impairs survival rates among hematological patients when compared to the general population. Our prospective multicentre project analyzed early administration of anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike protein neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (NmAbs) -bamlanivimab (72%) and casirivimab/imdevimab (28%) -efficacy among hematological patients with early-stage COVID-19. Mortality rate was compared to a control cohort of 575 SARS-CoV-2 positive hematological patients untreated with any specific anti-COVID-19 therapy. 88 hematological patients with lymphomas, acute leukemias, and myeloma as their most frequent underlying diagnoses (72%) were evaluated with a 97 days median follow-up after NmAb administration. One third of patients (32%) were treated with an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody before COVID-19 diagnosis. Median time between first COVID-19 symptom and NmAb administration was 2 days. When administering NmAb, 29%, 57%, 11%, 2%, and 1% of our patients had asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical degrees of COVID-19, respectively.

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Invasive fungal disease (IFD) early diagnosis improves hematological patient survival. Non-culture-based methods may reduce diagnostic time to identify IFD. As complex data on the value of 1,3-β-d-glucan (BDG) from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) compared to serum for the most frequent invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) diagnosis are scarce, particularly including evaluation of potential factors adversely affecting BDG assay, we provided prospective single-center analysis evaluating 172 episodes of pulmonary infiltrates with BDG detection in BALF and serum samples collected in parallel among hematological patients from 2006 to 2015. Proven and probable IPA were documented in 13.4% of the episodes. Sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive and negative predictive value (PPV; NPV), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of the BDG assay using standard (80 pg/ml) cut-off for BALF were: 56.5%; 83.2%; 34.2%; 92.5%, and 6.5, respectively, and for serum were: 56.5%; 82.6%; 33.3%; 92.5%, and 6.2, respectively. The same BDG assay parameters employing a calculated optimal cut-off for BALF (39 pg/ml) were: 78.3%; 72.5%; 30.5%; 95.6%, and 9.5, respectively; and for serum (40 pg/ml) were: 73.9%; 69.1%; 27.0%; 94.5%, and 6.3, respectively. While identifying acceptable SEN, SPE, and DOR, yet low PPV of both BALF and serum BDG assay for IPA diagnosis, neither the combination of both materials nor the new optimal BDG cut-off led to significant test quality improvement. Absolute neutrophil count and aspirated BALF volume with a significant trend affected BDG assay performance. The BDG test did not outperform galactomannan assay.