12 Aug Patients with Cancer Appear More Vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2: A Multicenter Study during the COVID-19 Outbreak
Mengyuan Dai, Dianbo Liu, Miao Liu, Fuxiang Zhou, Guiling Li, Zhen Chen, Zhian Zhang, Hua You, Meng Wu, Qichao Zheng, Yong Xiong, Huihua Xiong, Chun Wang, Changchun Chen, Fei Xiong, Yan Zhang, Yaqin Peng, Siping Ge, Bo Zhen, Tingting Yu, Ling Wang, Hua Wang, Yu Liu, Yeshan Chen, Junhua Mei, Xiaojia Gao, Zhuyan Li, Lijuan Gan, Can He, Zhen Li, Yuying Shi, Yuwen Qi, Jing Yang, Daniel G. Tenen, Li Chai, Lorelei A. Mucci, Mauricio Santillana and Hongbing Cai.
ABSTRACT
The new COVID-19 outbreak has affected more than 200 countries and territories as of March 2020. Since cancer patients are generally more vulnerable to infections, a systematic analysis of diverse cohorts of cancer patients affected by COVID is needed. -19.
We conducted a multicenter study that included 105 cancer patients and 536 age-matched non-cancer patients confirmed with COVID-19.
Our results showed that COVID-19 cancer patients had higher risks for all serious outcomes:
- Patients with hematologic cancer, lung cancer, or metastatic cancer (stage IV) had the highest frequency of serious events.
- Patients with non-metastatic cancer experienced similar frequencies of serious conditions as those seen in patients without cancer.
- Patients who received surgery had higher risks of serious events, while patients who underwent radiation therapy alone showed no significant difference in serious events compared with patients without cancer.
These findings indicate that cancer patients appear more vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.
SIGNIFICANCE: Because this is the first large cohort study on this topic, our report will provide much-needed information that will benefit cancer patients globally. As such, we believe it is extremely important that our study be disseminated widely to alert physicians and patients.