Cancer patients who have recently received treatment are at increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19, a new study suggests.
Researchers from the University of Texas Cancer Center, one of the nation's largest cancer centers based in Houston, gathered data on different Covid outcomes for cancer patients depending on the type of treatment they received.
They found cancer patients who had received any sort of treatment within the past three months were 74 percent more likely to die from the virus and 69 percent more likely to require intensive care unit (ICU) admission than those without cancer.
Patients who were treated with chemotherapy or chemoimmunotherapy were most at risk, though researchers do not elaborate why.
Surprisingly, people with cancer who had not recently been treated were not at heightened risk of serious outcomes from COVID-19.
The team believes the findings mean that cancer patients who contract COVID-19 cannot all be treated the same because they may have very different needs depending on recent treatment for their tumors.
Cancer patients who had received treatment within the three months before contracting COVID-19 were at much higher risk from the virus, being 74% more likely to die and 69% more likely to be admitted to an ICU, though patients without recent treatment had the same rates of death and ICU visits as non-cancer patients
Researchers are unsure what to exactly make of these results, though they believe cancer patients should not all be lumped together when being treated for the virus (file image)
'Patients with no recent cancer treatment had a similar risk of mortality and ICU stay and a lower risk of mechanical ventilation and hospitalization compared with patients without cancer,' the team wrote.
'This finding suggests that patients with cancer represent a heterogenous group, and risk stratification according to recent treatment and the treatment administered has important implications for patients,
