According to new research, cancer patients diagnosed more than 2 years ago are more exposed to the threat of having a severe Covid-19 infection. The research finding also showed Asian ethnicity or who were receiving palliative treatment for cancer being more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.
The study was conducted by researchers at King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust and was published on July 22 in Frontiers in Oncology.
About 156 cancer patients who went through COVID-diagnosis between February 29 and May 12 were used for the study. Out of the total 156 cancer patients, 82% were mildly or moderately Covid-19 infected while 18% were severely diseased.
The researchers used advanced statistical methods to establish the association between their demographic and clinical characteristics with Covid-19 severity or death. The result showed that after 37 days later, 22% of the patients have died. The patients having Asian ethnicity, palliative treatment, or a diagnosis of cancer more than 24 months before the onset of Covid-19 symptoms were found to be more vulnerable to death resulting from comorbidity. Patients who had dyspnoea (shortness of breath) or high CRP levels (a common blood marker of inflammation) were also found to be likely to die from Covid-19.
The study found out that Severe Covid-19 infection was linked with fever, dyspnoea, gastrointestinal symptoms or a diagnosis of cancer more than 2 years ago.
Majority of patients used in the study were male, from a lower socio-economic background; half were of the white race, 22% were of the black race and 4% were Asian. Hypertension was reportedly the most common comorbidity found in the studied patients and it was followed by diabetes, renal impairment and cardiovascular disease.
The most common tumour types found in the patients studied were urological/gynaecological (29%), haematological (18%), and breast (15%). Haematological cancer patients (36%) represented the largest proportion among those with Covid-19 severity.