Coronavirus is 3 times more likely to kill patients with certain cancers, study says

Coronavirus patients with certain types of cancers have three times the death rate compared to people who don’t have cancer, according to a new study.

The study published Tuesday collected information from 14 hospitals in the Hubei province of China and included 105 cancer patients and 536 non-cancer patients. All of them had COVID-19 and were around the same age, according to the study.

The study found that cancer patients are more susceptible to the effects of the coronavirus and are about three times more likely to die than non-cancer patients. Cancer patients are also more likely to experience “severe events” such as admission to intensive care units or being put on a ventilator, according to the research.

It also found patients with hematological or blood cancer, lung cancer, or metastatic cancer (stage IV) had the most severe events and cancer patients who were non-metastatic had similar likelihood of severe events as non-cancer patients.

Patients who had surgery had higher risks and those who only underwent radiotherapy had similar risks of severe events as non-cancer patients. The risks depend on age, type of cancer, and the treatment they received.

“These findings suggest that patients with cancer are a much more vulnerable population in the current COVID-19 outbreak,” the authors wrote.

The authors of the study found patients with hematological cancer have the highest death rates and severity among cancer patients, followed by lung cancer patients. Leukemia and other blood cancers attack the immune system, which could account for the higher death rate. Lung cancer patients have “decreased lung function” which could contribute to worse outcomes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists people who have had cancer treatment as “higher risk for severe illness” due to being immunocompromised and having a reduced ability to fight off the disease.

Nearly 1 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with the coronavirus, while there are more than 3 million confirmed cases worldwide, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That includes more than 56,000 deaths in the U.S. and 213,000 globally.

This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 10:47 AM with the headline "Coronavirus is 3 times more likely to kill patients with certain cancers, study says."