Collection of the lung autopsy samples, plasma, and
ethical committee approvals:
Lung autopsy samples from eight patients, who died of COVID-19, and six
patients, who died of non-COVID-19-related deaths were examined. This
study was conducted in compliance with approval by the ethical committee
of Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, Ukraine (Protocol
Numbers: 20180226/2; 20211122/9). Patients, who were hospitalized with
positive COVID-19 test, with pneumonia, and with at least one
complicating factor such as diabetes mellitus or hypertension and who
died in the hospital after therapy including oxygen support, constituted
the COVID-19 group. Non-COVID-19 samples were from hospitalized
patients, who had no positive COVID-19 tests at the time of death and
were characterized by oxygen saturation being >95%.
Plasma samples from hospitalized COVID-19 patients (n = 62) were
obtained following a protocol approved by the institutional review board
(IRB# 808542), University of Pennsylvania, between April and June 202036; anonymous discarded plasma samples (n=15; gift of
Donald Siegel, University of Pennsylvania)37 and
additional samples (n=11) were obtained following an IRB-approved
protocol from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.