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Cancer patients are at increased risk of death from COVID-19-19 and should take extra precautions to avoid infection, according to research led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The study is the largest of its kind to investigate COVID-19 results for individuals with cancer.
Dr. Vikas Mehta, co-author of the study, is a surgical oncologist at Montefiore Health System and an associate professor at Einstein.
“Our findings emphasize the need to prevent cancer patients from contracting COVID-19 and, if they do, to identify and closely monitor these people for dangerous symptoms,” said Dr. Mehta.
“We hope that our findings can inform states and communities that have not yet been so badly affected by this pandemic about the unique vulnerability facing cancer patients.”
The research focused on 218 cancer patients who tested positive for COVID-19 from March 18 to April 8, 2020 at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. This region of New York City has been particularly affected by COVID-19, with a dramatically high number of deaths that includes a total of 61 cancer patients.
“A key element is that mortality appears to be more related to frailty, age and comorbidities than to active cancer therapy,” said co-author Dr. Balazs Halmos.
“Our data suggests that we should not stop life-saving cancer therapies, but rather develop strategies to minimize potential COVID-19 exposures and reevaluate therapies for our most vulnerable cancer populations,” explained co-author Dr. Amit Verma.
The high mortality rate within the study population can be explained in part by the time of illness of the patients. Individuals contracted the disease at a time when testing and hospitalization were largely reserved for the sickest patients with the most severe symptoms.
However, even compared to death rates in cancer-free patients in New York City during the same time period, cancer patients had a significantly increased risk of dying from COVID-19.
Among COVID-19 patients with blood cancers, such as leukemia and lymphoma, 37 percent lost their lives. The death rate for patients with lung cancer was 55 percent, colorectal cancer was 38 percent, breast cancer was 14 percent, and prostate cancer was 20 percent.
There was a significantly increased risk of death from COVID-19 in cancer patients who were older or suffered from hypertension, heart disease, and lung disease.
More than half of the people with cancer who died from COVID-19 had been in places with a high risk of exposure, such as nursing homes or hospitals, within 30 days of diagnosis.
As a result of the findings, Montefiore has changed some of its clinical practices through the use of telemedicine and early and aggressive social distancing for cancer patients. The health care system has opened an outpatient clinical hospital service for cancer, and has deployed social workers and food deliveries to its population at risk.
The study is published in the journal. Cancer discovery.
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer
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