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Meta-Analysis
. 2023 Sep 8;18(9):e0291178.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291178. eCollection 2023.

Risk factors for mortality among lung cancer patients with covid-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Mingyue Wu  1 , Siru Liu  2 , Changyu Wang  3 , Yuxuan Wu  4 , Jialin Liu  1   4   5
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Risk factors for mortality among lung cancer patients with covid-19 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Mingyue Wu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Lung cancer patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection experience high mortality rates. The study aims to determine the risk factors for mortality in lung cancer patients with COVID-19 infection.

Materials and methods: Followed the PRISMA reporting guidelines, PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science were systematically searched to February 20, 2023, for studies of lung cancer patients with COVID-19 infection. The main outcome of interest was the risk factor for mortality. We also compared the mortality rate of those patients among different continents. A pooled risk ratio (RR) with 95% CI was presented as the result of this meta-analysis.

Results: Meta-analysis of 33 studies involving 5018 patients showed that pooled mortality rate of lung cancer in COVID-19 patients was 0.31 (95% CI: 0.25-0.36). Subgroup analysis based on the continents showed significant difference of the mortality rate was observed between Asia and the rest of world (χ2 = 98.96, P < 0.01). Older age (SMD: 0.24, 95% CI: 0.09-0.40, P < 0.01), advanced lung cancer (RR: 1.14, 95% CI: 1.04-1.26, P < 0.01), coexisting comorbidities such as hypertension (RR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.01-1.35, P = 0.04) and cardiovascular disease (RR: 1.40, 95% CI: 1.03-1.91, P = 0.03) were associated with higher risk of mortality rate in those patients.

Conclusions: Findings of this meta-analysis confirms an increased risk of mortality in lung cancer patients with COVID-19 infection, whose risk factors for these patients appear to be exacerbated by older age, advanced-stage lung cancer, and comorbidities such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Details of the PRISMA chart for study selection.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The distribution of lung cancer patients across 33 studies.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Pooled mortality of lung cancer in COVID-19 patients after subgroup analysis based on the continents.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Forest plot for risk factors of case mortality of lung cancer patients with COVID-19 infection.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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