Author: By Lynda Williams, Senior medwireNews Reporter
medwireNews: A systematic literature analysis has characterised the mortality risk associated with COVID-19 among adult cancer patients, finding one in four with the infection have died.
The investigators report in the European Journal of Cancer that 4243 of 18,650 cancer patients diagnosed with COVID-19 by 16 July 2020 died, giving a case-fatality rate of 25.6%
The team collated data from 52 published articles or conference proceedings that reported on 10 or more patients with solid and/or haematological malignancies who were diagnosed with COVID-19. These included the CCC-19 registry, the UK Coronavirus Cancer Monitoring Project, the TERAVOLT registry and the COVIDSurg Collaborative, as well as studies from hospitals in China, the USA, the UK, Italy, Brazil and other countries.
The I2 value of 48.9% was below the 50.0% threshold for indication of “substantial heterogeneity” and this was also true in a sensitivity analysis including only studies with at least 100 patients (I2=49.7%).
“The results of our pooled analysis clearly show that the mortality is high among patients with cancer and COVID-19, and [the infection] should be considered as an independent risk factor, in addition to older age, male sex, black race, current smoker, [and] other co-morbidities”, write Evandro de Azambuja, from Institut Jules Bordet in Brussels, Belgium, and co-workers.
They conclude: “Appropriate and aggressive preventive measures must be taken to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in patients with cancer, and to optimally manage those who do contract the infection.”
Reference
Saini KS, Tagliamento M, Lambertini M, et al. Mortality in patients with cancer and COVID-19: A systematic review and pooled analysis of 52 studies. Eur J Cancer; Advance online publication 2 September 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2020.08.011
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