key: cord-320994-3ahwc3aq
authors: Miyashita, Hirotaka; Mikami, Takahisa; Chopra, Nitin; Yamada, Takayuki; Chernyavsky, Svetlana; Rizk, Dahlia; Cruz, Christina
title: Do Patients with Cancer Have a Poorer Prognosis of COVID-19? An Experience in New York City.
date: 2020-04-21
journal: Ann Oncol
DOI: 10.1016/j.annonc.2020.04.006
sha: 
doc_id: 320994
cord_uid: 3ahwc3aq

nan

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and has been spreading rapidly. As the infection has become widespread, concern for the influence of COVID-19 on patients with cancer has grown. Zhang However, the mortality rates of COVID-19 in cancer patients were lower than those in patients without cancer in age groups older than 50 years, though they were not statistically significant. (Table 1) Cytokine-associated lung injury is a potential etiology in severe cases of COVID-19. 3 Patients with cancer have impaired immune systems, which may decrease the frequency of overwhelming lung inflammation, contributing to these patients' non-inferior mortality rates. 4, 5 Nevertheless, in young populations, whose mortality rate from COVID-19 is very low in general, baseline fragility in cancer patients may lead to a relatively higher rate of deaths.

The unclear causation between COVID-19 and intubation or death is a limitation in this aggregate-level data analysis. Additionally, the heterogeneity of cancer types and varying stages of the disease may obscure the rationale of our findings. However, this is the first report on the prognosis of COVID-19 patients with cancer in the US. The relatively large number of patients in the study allowed for the adjustment of age, which is one of the strongest prognostic factors. Further study based on the individual patients' data is warranted for a better understanding of the risk of COVID-19 in cancer patients.

Clinical characteristics of COVID-19-infected cancer patients: A retrospective case study in three hospitals within Wuhan, China

COVID-19 Infection in Cancer Patients: Early Observations and Unanswered Questions

Pathological findings of COVID-19 associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome

Risk of COVID-19 for patients with cancer

Cancer immunoediting: Integrating immunity's roles in cancer suppression and promotion. Science (80-. )

Table 1. Relative risk of intubation or death in patients with or without cancer stratified by age groups Intubation (event / total) Death (event / total)

We wish to thank the timely help given by Satoshi Miyashita, MD at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in organizing the study group.Author Contributions: HM had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and accuracy of the data analysis.