medwireNews: Among patients with thoracic cancer, the risk for all-cause mortality in the 30 days following COVID-19 infection is highest among those with a poor ECOG performance status or progressive disease, suggests an analysis of data from the CCC19 registry.
Patients with a daily steroid dose greater than 10 mg prednisone daily equivalent and those with pulmonary comorbidities were also at greater risk for death in the month after infection than other individuals, as were men compared with women.
But regression analysis did not find significant associations between receipt of chemotherapy given with or without immunotherapy or radiotherapy, immunotherapy alone, or targeted therapy within 30 days of infection and an increased likelihood for death or severe COVID-19 illness.
The findings were presented at the IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer 2022 in Vienna, Austria, by Amit Kulkarni (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA) who said that the overall 30-day mortality rate was “high,” at 22–23% regardless of systemic treatment, and the results did not indicate the need for “withholding or delaying systemic cancer treatment in the context of recent COVID-19.”
The study included 903 individuals with thoracic cancer who were followed up for a median 70 days after a diagnosis of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection, the majority of whom lived in the USA (91%) and had recently received systemic therapy (53%).
Discussing the results at the session, Marina Garassino (University of Chicago, Illinois, USA) noted that the impact of ECOG performance status on survival was similar to that found in the TERAVOLT registry and emphasized the need for continuing COVID-19 research in thoracic cancer patients.
medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare Ltd. © 2022 Springer Healthcare Ltd, part of the Springer Nature Group
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IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer 2022; Vienna, Austria: 6–9 August