Cancer & COVID-19

By Amy Orciari Herman

Edited by Susan Sadoughi, MD, and Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, FACP, DFASAM

In JAMA Oncology, researchers report on some 1500 patients with cancer admitted to a Wuhan hospital during the COVID-19 outbreak. The estimated rate of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was higher in these patients than in the general Wuhan population (0.79% vs. 0.37%). Although cancer treatments are immunosuppressive, less than half of the infected patients were undergoing active cancer treatment. As of early March, one-fourth of the infected patients had died.

JAMA Oncology research letter (Free)