medwireNews: Individuals with breast cancer may have a greater risk for acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection than those with other cancer types, suggests Italian research.
Among 979 patients with cancer who participated in a structured COVID-19 screening program between April 2020 and April 2021, the rate of SARS-CoV-2 positivity was 20.6% among the 199 breast cancer patients.
This was significantly higher than the 12.8% positivity rate for the 780 participants with other cancer types, say Michele Milella, from the University of Verona, and colleagues in a letter to the Annals of Oncology.
There were no cases of severe COVID-19 among the 41 breast cancer patients with a positive test and no deaths due to COVID-19, but six patients needed to be hospitalized.
“Since such evidence might be useful to improve on current surveillance and management strategies, taking into account the circulation and clinical expressivity of different SARS-CoV-2 variants and the impact of the vaccination campaign, we plan to confirm our findings in a larger contemporary cohort from [the Veneto Oncology Network] and validate them using epidemiological data,” conclude the researchers.
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