PITTSBURGH (TNS) — Real-time studies among UPMC covid-19 patients show that monoclonal antibody treatments “significantly decrease” hospitalization and death, researchers said Wednesday, and experts say they’re studying whether such treatments are effective against more contagious variants, like the fast-spreading delta variant.

UPMC and University of Pittsburgh officials, including infectious disease pharmacist and study author Erin McCreary, will discuss the specifics of the study, called Optimise-C19, at 11 a.m.

The study results were published in medRxiv, a preprint journal for studies awaiting peer-review. Through the duration of the study, UPMC admitted 26 covid patients each day on average, with a seven-day moving average of 107 patients. Monoclonal antibody treatment led to 5% lower odds of death each month, the study authors concluded.

Before UPMC launched the program, “only a small percentage” of patients eligible for monoclonal antibody treatment were taking advantage, McCreary said in a statement.

From March through June, UPMC randomly gave either Eli Lilly or Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment to 1,935 covid-19 patents. Initial data, which came before delta was the predominant strain in the country, showed both treatments “performed well in keeping patients with covid-19 alive and out of the hospital,” researchers said. With both treatments, “very few” serious complications arose.

Once it was granted emergency use authorization, Vir Biotechnology’s treatment, called sotrovimab, was added into the study.

”That’s the beauty of an adaptive learning health system trial,” said study author Dr. David Huang, an intensivist at UPMC and professor. “As new treatments are authorized, we can immediately begin offering them to patients and collect randomized data to inform future treatment protocols. We can then compare outcomes as the virus evolves and new variants emerge.”