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. 2021 Jan;26(1):e182-e185.
doi: 10.1634/theoncologist.2020-0572. Epub 2020 Sep 7.

Cancer and Risk of COVID-19 Through a General Community Survey

Karla A Lee #  1 , Wenjie Ma #  2 , Daniel R Sikavi  3 , David A Drew  2 , Long H Nguyen  2 , Ruth C E Bowyer  1 , M Jorge Cardoso  4 , Tove Fall  5   6 , Maxim B Freidin  1 , Maria Gomez  5 , Mark Graham  4 , Chuan-Guo Guo  2 , Amit D Joshi  2 , Sohee Kwon  2 , Chun-Han Lo  2 , Mary Ni Lochlainn  1 , Cristina Menni  1 , Benjamin Murray  4 , Raaj Mehta  2 , Mingyang Song  2 , Carole H Sudre  4 , Veronique Bataille  1 , Thomas Varsavsky  4 , Alessia Visconti  1 , Paul W Franks  5 , Jonathan Wolf  7 , Claire J Steves  1 , Sebastien Ourselin  4 , Tim D Spector  1 , Andrew T Chan  2   8   9 ; COPE consortium
Affiliations

Cancer and Risk of COVID-19 Through a General Community Survey

Karla A Lee et al. Oncologist. 2021 Jan.

Abstract

Individuals with cancer may be at high risk for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and adverse outcomes. However, evidence from large population-based studies examining whether cancer and cancer-related therapy exacerbates the risk of COVID-19 infection is still limited. Data were collected from the COVID Symptom Study smartphone application since March 29 through May 8, 2020. Among 23,266 participants with cancer and 1,784,293 without cancer, we documented 10,404 reports of a positive COVID-19 test. Compared with participants without cancer, those living with cancer had a 60% increased risk of a positive COVID-19 test. Among patients with cancer, current treatment with chemotherapy or immunotherapy was associated with a 2.2-fold increased risk of a positive test. The association between cancer and COVID-19 infection was stronger among participants >65 years and males. Future studies are needed to identify subgroups by tumor types and treatment regimens who are particularly at risk for COVID-19 infection and adverse outcomes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures of potential conflicts of interest may be found at the end of this article.

David A. Drew: Zoe Global Ltd. (RF); Jonathan Wolf: Zoe Global Ltd. (E, OI); Tim D. Spector: Zoe Global Ltd. (C/A); Andrew T. Chan: Zoe Global Ltd. (RF). The other authors indicated no financial relationships.

(C/A) Consulting/advisory relationship; (RF) Research funding; (E) Employment; (ET) Expert testimony; (H) Honoraria received; (OI) Ownership interests; (IP) Intellectual property rights/inventor/patent holder; (SAB) Scientific advisory board

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