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Review
. 2021:26:100285.
doi: 10.1016/j.ctarc.2020.100285. Epub 2020 Dec 13.

Cancer patients and COVID-19: Mortality, serious complications, biomarkers, and ways forward

Kush Gupta  1 , Shipra Gandhi  2 , Alexander Mebane 3rd  3 , Angelica Singh  4 , Nivetha Vishnuvardhan  5 , Eshan Patel  6
Affiliations
Review

Cancer patients and COVID-19: Mortality, serious complications, biomarkers, and ways forward

Kush Gupta et al. Cancer Treat Res Commun. 2021.

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has particularly serious consequences for cancer patients, as they are at high risk for severe complications and mortality due to the virus since cancer patients are immunocompromised. Preliminary evidence suggests that patients with hematological, and metastatic malignancies are particularly susceptible to developing severe COVID-19 illness, which leads to poor prognosis. Biomarkers including C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 may be predictors of outcome and, therefore, crucial in assessing COVID-19 illness severity in cancer patients. A patient-specific risk and benefit inventory should be completed, and expert guidelines consulted when deciding to continue or postpone therapeutic interventions. This review presents preliminary evidence of COVID-19 infection and its impact on cancer, as well as discussion of general guidelines for the treatment and management of cancer patients with COVID-19.

Keywords: Biomarkers; C-reactive protein; Covid-19; Interleukin-6; Sever acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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