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Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Sep-Oct;14(5):1431-1437.
doi: 10.1016/j.dsx.2020.07.037. Epub 2020 Jul 28.

Impact of COVID -19 in cancer patients on severity of disease and fatal outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abhijeet Ashok Salunke  1 , Kunal Nandy  2 , Subodh Kumar Pathak  3 , Jaymin Shah  4 , Mayur Kamani  2 , Viswanth Kottakota  2 , Praveen Thivari  3 , Apurva Pandey  5 , Keval Patel  2 , Priyank Rathod  2 , Supreet Bhatt  2 , Pariseema Dave  2 , Shashank Pandya  2
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Impact of COVID -19 in cancer patients on severity of disease and fatal outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abhijeet Ashok Salunke et al. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

Background and aimsbackground: Currently there is limited knowledge on cancer and COVID-19; we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the impact of cancer on serious events including ICU admission rate and mortality in COVID 19.

Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials were searched on April 16, 2020, to extract published articles that reported the outcomes of cancer in COVID-19 patients. The search terms were "coronavirus" and "clinical characteristics" with no language or time restrictions. We identified 512 published results and 13 studies were included in the analysis.

Results: There were 3775 patients, of whom 63 (1·66%) had a cancer. The pooled estimates of ICU admission in COVID 19 patients with and without cancer were 40% versus 8·42%.The odds ratio of ICU admission rates between the cancer and non-cancer groups was 2.88 with a 95% CI of 1·18 to 7·01 (p = 0·026). The pooled estimates of death rate in COVID -19 patients with and without cancer were 20·83% versus 7·82%. The odds ratio of death rates between the cancer and non-cancer groups was 2.25 with a 95% CI ranging from 0·71 to 7·10 with p value of 0·166. The pooled prevalence of cancer patients was 2% (95 CI 1-4).

Conclusions: Presence of cancer in COVID-19 leads to higher risk of developing serious events i.e. ICU admission, mechanical ventilation and mortality. The presence of cancer has a significant impact on mortality rate in COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cancer; Corona disease; ICU Stay; Mortality rate; Non cancer; Oncology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest Nothing to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Algorithm for database search and article selection.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval for ICU admission between cancer and non-cancer group in the COVID-19 patients.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval for death rate between cancer and non-cancer group in the COVID-19 patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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