The Impact of Vaccination on Severity of COVID-19 Illness in Hematologic Malignancies Patients

Abstract

Covid 19 in hematological cancer patients can lead to a deterioration in the clinical course and a reduction in life expectancy leading high fatality rate. Vaccines developed against the causative virus may reduce the severity of the disease and a decline in mortality rate. This study aims to determine the impact of vaccination on the severity of COVID-19 illness in patients with hematologic malignancies. A multicenter retrospective observational study was conducted on 60 hospitalized patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs). All patients were previously diagnosed with leukemia or lymphoma and tested positive for COVID-19 by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Protocol version 8 was used to determine the patients' results, including improvement to discharge criteria or deterioration to death. The most results in this study; The mean age of the patients was 33.63± 16.5 years (range 6-72 years). Diabetes was the most common comorbid illness (10%). The Oxygen saturation range was (70-95%). Among (60) patients enrolled in this study;29(48.33%) was not received any Covid-19 vaccine while 31(51.67%) were fully vaccinated; concerning patients with positive COVID19; the underlying hematological malignancy was leukemia (63.3%) while patients with lymphoma were (36.7%); after 30-day follow up, depending to the outcome. The number of deaths was 14 cases (23.3%) of patients while the other 46 patients (74.7%) survived and were discharged from the hospital. Our study concludes that vaccinating hematological malignancy patients against Covid19 may provide clinical protection from this illness compared to no vaccination patients Keywords. COVID-19 disease, Hematological Malignancy, Vaccine, intensive care units