- Rubinstein, Samuel M;
- Bhutani, Divaya;
- Lynch, Ryan C;
- Hsu, Chih-Yuan;
- Shyr, Yu;
- Advani, Shailesh;
- Mesa, Ruben A;
- Mishra, Sanjay;
- Mundt, Daniel P;
- Shah, Dimpy P;
- Sica, R Alejandro;
- Stockerl-Goldstein, Keith E;
- Stratton, Catherine;
- Weiss, Matthias;
- Beeghly-Fadiel, Alicia;
- Accordino, Melissa;
- Assouline, Sarit E;
- Awosika, Joy;
- Bakouny, Ziad;
- Bashir, Babar;
- Berg, Stephanie;
- Bilen, Mehmet Asim;
- Castellano, Cecilia A;
- Cogan, Jacob C;
- Kc, Devendra;
- Friese, Christopher R;
- Gupta, Shilpa;
- Hausrath, Daniel;
- Hwang, Clara;
- Johnson, Nathalie A;
- Joshi, Monika;
- Kasi, Anup;
- Klein, Elizabeth J;
- Koshkin, Vadim S;
- Kuderer, Nicole M;
- Kwon, Daniel H;
- Labaki, Chris;
- Latif, Tahir;
- Lau, Eric;
- Li, Xuanyi;
- Lyman, Gary H;
- McKay, Rana R;
- Nagaraj, Gayathri;
- Nizam, Amanda;
- Nonato, Taylor K;
- Olszewski, Adam J;
- Polimera, Hyma V;
- Portuguese, Andrew J;
- Puc, Matthew M;
- Razavi, Pedram;
- Rosovski, Rachel;
- Schmidt, Andrew;
- Shah, Sumit A;
- Shastri, Aditi;
- Su, Christopher;
- Torka, Pallawi;
- Wise-Draper, Trisha M;
- Zubiri, Leyre;
- Warner, Jeremy L;
- Thompson, Michael A
Patients with B-lymphoid malignancies have been consistently identified as a population at high risk of severe COVID-19. Whether this is exclusively due to cancer-related deficits in humoral and cellular immunity, or whether risk of severe COVID-19 is increased by anticancer therapy, is uncertain. Using data derived from the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium (CCC19), we show that patients treated for B-lymphoid malignancies have an increased risk of severe COVID-19 compared with control populations of patients with non-B-lymphoid malignancies. Among patients with B-lymphoid malignancies, those who received anticancer therapy within 12 months of COVID-19 diagnosis experienced increased COVID-19 severity compared with patients with non-recently treated B-lymphoid malignancies, after adjustment for cancer status and several other prognostic factors. Our findings suggest that patients recently treated for a B-lymphoid malignancy are at uniquely high risk for severe COVID-19.
Significance
Our study suggests that recent therapy for a B-lymphoid malignancy is an independent risk factor for COVID-19 severity. These findings provide rationale to develop mitigation strategies targeted at the uniquely high-risk population of patients with recently treated B-lymphoid malignancies. This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 171.