Study identifies cancer patients most at risk of COVID

MONDAY June 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Patients hospitalized with Cancer are more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who are cancer survivors and patients who have never had cancer, according to a new study.

Researchers analyzed the records of nearly 4,200 patients hospitalized at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Of these patients, 233 had a cancer diagnosis.

Hospital death rates from COVID-19 were around 34% in people with active cancer, but have fallen to around 28% in those with a history of cancer or no history of cancer, according to study.

Those who are active blood cancers had the highest risk of death from COVID-19, according to the study recently published in the journal Cancer.

Receive cancer therapy – including chemotherapy, molecularly targeted therapies and immunotherapy – in the three months before hospitalization was not linked to a higher risk of death, the researchers said.

“Among people hospitalized with active cancer and COVID-19, recent cancer treatment has not been associated with worse outcomes,” said lead study author Dr. Daniel Becker, medical oncologist at NYU Langone.

Therefore, “people with active cancer should take precautions to avoid contracting COVID-19, including vaccination, but do not need to avoid cancer treatment,” Becker said in A press release.

The findings also underscore the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for cancer patients, according to the journal’s new editor, Dr Suresh Ramalingam. He is Deputy Director of the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University in Atlanta and Associate Dean for Cancer Research in the University’s Faculty of Medicine.

More information

The National Cancer Institute in the United States has more information on cancer patients and COVID-19.

SOURCE: Cancer, press release, June 7, 2021