Does systemic anti-tumor therapy increase COVID-19 risk in patients with cancer?

Abstract

Purpose We aimed to determine the COVID-19 infection rate and determine the factors that affect hospitalization and prognosis in patients receiving systemic chemotherapy (CT), immunotherapy (IT) and molecular-targeted therapies at our hospital within three months after the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods The patients who received systemic treatment at chemotherapy unit with diagnosis of cancer between 11 March 2020 and 11 June 2020 were included. The clinical and demographic characteristics of patients, the systemic treatments that they received (CT, IT, targeted therapies), and the stage of disease were determined. For the parameters that affect the hospitalization of COVID-19 infected patients were also determined. Results Among 1149 patients with cancer, 84 of them were infected with COVID-19, and the median age of infected patients was 61.0 (IQR: 21–84) and 60.7% of them were male. As a subtype of cancers lung cancer was more frequent in the patients who infected with COVID compared with non-infected ones and the difference was statistically significant when the underlying malignities were compared (32.1% vs 19.0%, p = 0.031). The hospitalization rate and receiving COVID-19 treatment were more frequent in metastatic patients who were receiving palliative therapy, and the difference was statistically significant ( p = 0.01, p = 0.03). In our study, infection rate was similar among patients treated with CT, IT and CT plus targeted therapy; however, fewer COVID-19 infections were seen at patients who received only targeted therapy. Conclusion COVID-19 infection is more frequent in cancer patients and tends to be more severe in metastatic cancer patients receiving anticancer treatment, and the continuation of palliative cancer treatments in these patients may cause increased cancer and infection-related morbidity and mortality.

Outcome of Gynecologic Cancer Patients With The Covid-19 Infection : A Systematic Review And Meta Analysis

“…S12. 15,17,23,29,31,34,43,46,60 Covid-19 death was comparable in among cancer treatment between gynecologic cancer and other cancer gathered from 8 studies (OR 0.90, CI 0.41-1.96, p 0.78, I 2 3%) Fig. S13.…”

“…Lastly, 20 studies provided data on overall Covid-19 infectivity (99601 gynecologic cancer, 8311468 overall control population). 15,17,23,29,31,[33][34][35]39,43,44,46,49,51,54,55,58,60 Covid-19 infection was comparable between gynecologic cancer and control (OR 0.97, CI 0.81-1.15, p 0.69, I 2 47%) Fig. S6.…”

“…S18. 15,17,23,29,33,39,43,49,50,55,60 Data from 28 studies revealed that gynecologic cancer had fewer Covid-19 death than lung cancer patients (OR 0.52, CI 0.43-.063, p < 0.0001, I 2 4%) Fig. 6A.…”

“…Overall hospitalization from Covid-19 available from 4 studies (880 gynecologic cancer, 103466 overall control population). 17,30,36,49 Hospitalization was comparable between gynecologic cancer and control (OR 0.93, CI 0.46-1.87, p 0.83, I 2 92%) Fig. S5.…”

“…6C. 17,30 Gynecologic cancer VS Breast Cancer Data from 13 studies showed gynecologic cancer and breast cancer were equivalent on having Covid-19 infection (OR 1.07, CI 0.94-1.22, p 0.30, I 2 18%) Fig. S19.…”