scholarly journals Prevalence and Outcome of COVID-19 Infection in Cancer Patients: A National Veterans Affairs Study

Author(s):  
Nathanael R Fillmore ◽  
Jennifer La ◽  
Raphael E Szalat ◽  
David P Tuck ◽  
Vinh Nguyen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Emerging data suggest variability in susceptibility and outcome to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Identifying risk factors associated with infection and outcomes in cancer patients is necessary to develop healthcare recommendations. Methods We analyzed electronic health records of the US Veterans Affairs Healthcare System and assessed the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in cancer patients. We evaluated the proportion of cancer patients tested for COVID-19 who were positive, as well as outcome attributable to COVID-19, and stratified by clinical characteristics including demographics, comorbidities, cancer treatment, and cancer type. All statistical tests are 2-sided. Results Of 22 914 cancer patients tested for COVID-19, 1794 (7.8%) were positive. The prevalence of COVID-19 was similar across age. Higher prevalence was observed in African American (15.0%) compared with White (5.5%; P < .001) and in patients with hematologic malignancy compared with those with solid tumors (10.9% vs 7.8%; P < .001). Conversely, prevalence was lower in current smokers and patients who recently received cancer therapy (<6 months). The COVID-19–attributable mortality was 10.9%. Higher attributable mortality rates were observed in older patients, those with higher Charlson comorbidity score, and in certain cancer types. Recent (<6 months) or past treatment did not influence attributable mortality. Importantly, African American patients had 3.5-fold higher COVID-19–attributable hospitalization; however, they had similar attributable mortality as White patients. Conclusion Preexistence of cancer affects both susceptibility to COVID-19 infection and eventual outcome. The overall COVID-19–attributable mortality in cancer patients is affected by age, comorbidity, and specific cancer types; however, race or recent treatment including immunotherapy do not impact outcome.

Author(s):  
Nathanael R Fillmore ◽  
Jennifer La ◽  
Raphael E Szalat ◽  
David P Tuck ◽  
Vinh Nguyen ◽  
...  

Background: Emerging data suggest variability in susceptibility and outcome to Covid-19 infection. Identifying the risk-factors associated with infection and outcomes in cancer patients is necessary to develop healthcare recommendations. Methods: We analyzed electronic health records of the US National Veterans Administration healthcare system and assessed the prevalence of Covid-19 infection in cancer patients. We evaluated the proportion of cancer patients tested for Covid-19 and their confirmed positivity, with clinical characteristics, and outcome, and stratified by demographics, comorbidities, cancer treatment and cancer type. Results: Of 22914 cancer patients tested for Covid-19, 1794 (7.8%) were positive. The prevalence of Covid-19 was similar across all ages. Higher prevalence was observed in African-American (AA) (15%) compared to white (5.5%; P<.001), in Hispanic vs non-Hispanic population and in patients with hematologic malignancy compared to those with solid tumors (10.9% vs 7.7%; P<.001). Conversely, prevalence was lower in current smoker patients, patients with other co-morbidities and having recently received cancer therapy (<6 months). The Covid-19 attributable mortality was 10.9%. Highest mortality rates were observed in older patients, those with renal dysfunction, higher Charlson co-morbidity score and with certain cancer types. Recent (<6 months) or past treatment did not influence mortality. Importantly, AA patients had 3.5-fold higher Covid-19 attributable hospitalization, however had similar mortality rate as white patients. Conclusion: Pre-existence of cancer affects both susceptibility to Covid-19 infection and eventual outcome. The overall Covid-19 attributable mortality in cancer patients is affected by age, co-morbidity and specific cancer types, however, race or recent treatment including immunotherapy does not impact outcome.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M Unger ◽  
Dawn L Hershman ◽  
Raymond U Osarogiagbon ◽  
Anirudh Gothwal ◽  
Seerat Anand ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Many clinical trials supporting new drug applications underrepresent minority patients. Trials conducted by the National Cancer Institute’s National Clinical Trial’s Network (NCTN) have greater outreach to community sites, potentially allowing better representation. We compared the representation of Black patients in pharmaceutical company–sponsored cancer clinical trials with NCTN trials and with the US cancer population. Methods We established a large cohort of study publications representing the results of trials that supported new US Food and Drug Administration drug approvals from 2008 to 2018. NCTN trial data were from the SWOG Cancer Research Network. US cancer population rates were estimated using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results survey data. We compared the proportion of Black patients by enrollment year for each cancer type and overall. Tests of proportions were used. All statistical tests were 2-sided. Results A total 358 trials (pharmaceutical company–sponsored trials, 85; SWOG trials, 273) comprised of 93 825 patients (pharmaceutical company–sponsored trials, 46 313; SWOG trials, 47 512) for 15 cancer types were analyzed. Overall, the proportion of Black patients was 2.9% for pharmaceutical company–sponsored trials, 9.0% for SWOG trials, and 12.1% for the US cancer population (P &lt; .001 for each pairwise comparison). These findings were generally consistent across individual cancer types. Conclusions The poor representation of Black patients in pharmaceutical company–sponsored trials supporting new drug applications could result in the use of new drugs with little data about efficacy or side effects in this key population. Moreover, because pharmaceutical company–sponsored trials test the newest available therapies, limited access to these trials represents a disparity in access to potential breakthrough therapies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. e14576-e14576
Author(s):  
Xinlu Liu ◽  
Jiasheng Xu ◽  
Jian Sun ◽  
Deng Wei ◽  
Xinsheng Zhang ◽  
...  

e14576 Background: Clinically, MSI had been used as an important molecular marker for the prognosis of colorectal cancer and other solid tumors and the formulation of adjuvant treatment plans, and it had been used to assist in the screening of Lynch syndrome. However, there were currently few reports on the incidence of MSI-H in Chinese pan-cancer patients. This study described the occurrence of MSI in a large multi-center pan-cancer cohort in China, and explored the correlation between MSI and patients' TMB, age, PD-L1 expression and other indicators. Methods: The study included 8361 patients with 8 cancer types from multiple tumor centers. Use immunohistochemistry to detect the expression of MMR protein (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6 and PMS2) in patients with various cancer types to determine the MSI status and detect the expression of PD-L1 in patients. Through NGS technology, 831 genes of 8361 Chinese cancer patients were sequenced and the tumor mutation load of the patients was calculated. The MSI mutations of patients in 8 cancer types were analyzed and the correlation between MSI mutations of patients and the patient's age, TMB and PD-L1 expression was analyzed. Results: The test results showed that MSI patients accounted for 1.66% of pan-cancers. Among them, MSI-H patients accounted for the highest proportion in intestinal cancer, reaching 7.2%. The correlation analysis between MSI and TMB was performed on patients of various cancer types. The results showed that: in each cancer type, MSI-H patients had TMB greater than 10, and 26.83% of MSI-H patients had TMB greater than 100 in colorectal cancer patients. The result of correlation analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between the patient's age and the risk of MSI mutation ( P> 0.05). In addition to PAAD and LUAD, the expression of PD-L1 in MSI-H patients was higher than that in MSS patients in other cancer types( P< 0.05). The correlation analysis between PD-L1 expression and TMB in patients found that in colorectal cancer, the higher the expression of PD-L1, the higher the patient's TMB ( P< 0.05). Conclusions: In this study, we explored the incidence of MSI-H in pan-cancer patients in China and found that the TMB was greater than 10 in patients with MSI-H. Compared with MSS patients, MSI-H patients have higher PD-L1 expression, and the higher the PD-L1 expression in colorectal cancer, the higher the TMB value of patients.


F1000Research ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin L. Ashdown ◽  
Andrew P. Robinson ◽  
Steven L. Yatomi-Clarke ◽  
M. Luisa Ashdown ◽  
Andrew Allison ◽  
...  

Complete response (CR) rates reported for cytotoxic chemotherapy for late-stage cancer patients are generally low, with few exceptions, regardless of the solid cancer type or drug regimen. We investigated CR rates reported in the literature for clinical trials using chemotherapy alone, across a wide range of tumour types and chemotherapeutic regimens, to determine an overall CR rate for late-stage cancers. A total of 141 reports were located using the PubMed database. A meta-analysis was performed of reported CR from 68 chemotherapy trials (total 2732 patients) using standard agents across late-stage solid cancers—a binomial model with random effects was adopted. Mean CR rates were compared for different cancer types, and for chemotherapeutic agents with different mechanisms of action, using a logistic regression. Our results showed that the CR rates for chemotherapy treatment of late-stage cancer were generally low at 7.4%, regardless of the cancer type or drug regimen used. We found no evidence that CR rates differed between different chemotherapy drug types, but amongst different cancer types small CR differences were evident, although none exceeded a mean CR rate of 11%. This remarkable concordance of CR rates regardless of cancer or therapy type remains currently unexplained, and motivates further investigation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 12019-12019
Author(s):  
Alex Wu ◽  
Yunhong Wu ◽  
PRABHSIMRANJOT SINGH ◽  
Vijaya Natarajan ◽  
Waseem Cheema ◽  
...  

12019 Background: Cancer patients are more likely to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) than non-cancer patients for immune enhancement and symptom relief. Cancer patients with immigration background may seek out CAM use more readily due to the influence from their cultural background. Methods: We carried out a prospective questionnaire study surveying the use of 21 CAM types to cancer patients between 10/23/2015 and 10/31/2020, to evaluate the association of CAM use with patients’ age, sex, cancer types, stages, race/ethnicity, birthplace, immigration duration, first language, marital status, levels of poverty, education and anxiety. Results: 658 patients were included in this analysis. The median age was 62 years old. The prevalence of CAM use was 66.11%. CAM use was higher in females (71.98%) than the males (54.34%) (p = 1.13x10-5), and higher in patients ≥ 38 years old (67.09%) than < 38 years old (46.88%) (p = 0.0215). Patients of African American descent (both US born and foreign born) (n = 198) had statistically higher CAM use (72.73%) than the Caucasians and Others (including Middle-Eastern, Multi-Racial and Others) (n = 266) (63.53%) (p = 0.0371). There was no difference of CAM use between the US born patients (n = 301, CAM use 68.77%) and the immigrants (n = 347, CAM use 63.98%) as a whole; however, Asian born immigrants (n = 106) had statistically less CAM use (53.77%) than the US born and other non-Latin American born (n = 397, CAM use 66.50%) (p = 0.0161), while the Latin-American born had a trend towards higher CAM use (74.83%, P = 0.0608). The number of years living in the US by the immigrants did not have an association with CAM use. Among psychosocial economic factors, married patients had a lower CAM use (61.23%) than the unmarried group (defined as divorced, separated, widowed, or single status, 70.85%) (p = 0.0102). The levels of education, poverty and anxiety did not show a statistical difference in relation to CAM use. Earlier stages of disease had numerically higher CAM use than stage 4 patients, and patients with breast and GYN cancers had higher CAM use (72.30%, p = 0.00252), consistent with the data on the higher CAM use in females. Prayer and spirituality and Dietary medicine were the 2 most common CAM types used (25.91% and 16.12%, respectively). African Americans of the combined US and Non-US origin showed the highest rate of using Prayer and spirituality (84.72%), versus Hispanics (71.19%), Caucasians (53.85%), and Asians (40.32%). Chiropractic therapy was exclusively used by Caucasian CAM users (9.38%). Conclusions: Among cancer patients of multi-ethnic groups with immigration background served in a community hospital in Brooklyn, New York, CAM use appeared to be higher in the African American patients, and lower in the patients born in Eastern Asia, as compared to the US born, or to Caucasians. Cultural roots appeared to be a strong influencing factor among all the medical and socioeconomic factors.


Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 400-400
Author(s):  
Nathanael R Fillmore ◽  
Jennifer La ◽  
Julie Tsu-Yu Wu ◽  
Westyn Branch-Elliman ◽  
Linden Huhmann ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is particularly serious in patients with multiple myeloma (MM), with estimated mortality of over 30% in several studies. In the general population, SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been demonstrated to be an effective approach to preventing infection. However, patients with MM were not included in vaccination trials. Recent studies suggest that patients with compromised immune systems exhibit reduced antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, and MM patients are often immunocompromised both due to MM itself and due to MM treatment. Thus, the objective of this retrospective cohort study in the national Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system was to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination to prevent COVID-19 infection in MM patients during the 140-day period following initial vaccine availability. Methods This is a multicenter study of SARS-CoV-2 infection among vaccinated and unvaccinated patients at VA hospitals nationwide during the period from 12/15/2020 to 5/4/2021. We identified a cohort of MM patients who were alive and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on their date of vaccination or inclusion as a control. For added comparison with a less immunocompromised population, we also identified a cohort of cancer survivors, defined as patients with any solid or hematologic malignancy who had been treated with systemic cancer-directed therapy subsequent to 8/15/2010, but had not been treated with such therapy in the 6 months prior to vaccination or inclusion as a control, and were alive and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection on that date. Vaccinated patients were exactly matched 1:1 to unvaccinated controls on race, VA facility, rurality of home address, cancer type, and treatment timing and modality with minimum distance matching on age. The primary exposure was receipt of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. The primary outcome was laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Vaccination effectiveness was defined as 1 minus the risk ratio of SARS-CoV-2 infection for vaccinated individuals compared to unvaccinated controls. Results 6,891 MM patients met eligibility criteria and 4,367 were vaccinated during the study period. Of those, 1,606 vaccinated MM patients were matched 1:1 to 1,606 unvaccinated or not yet vaccinated controls. In addition, for comparison, 2,476 vaccinated cancer survivors were matched 1:1 to 2,476 unvaccinated or not yet vaccinated controls. Median follow-up was 44 days among MM patients and 46 days among cancer survivors. Vaccine effectiveness in the matched cohort of MM patients was 22.2% (95% CI, -133 to 82.7%) starting 14 days after the second dose. In contrast, effectiveness was 82.3% (95% CI 16.4 to 100%) starting 14 days after the second dose in the matched cohort of cancer survivors. Among vaccinated MM patients in the matched cohort, 14 (8.7 per 1000 patients) were infected with SARS-CoV-2 subsequent to vaccination. Among vaccinated cancer survivors in the matched cohort, 10 (4.0 per 1000 patients) were infected subsequent to vaccination. Conclusion Vaccination is an effective strategy for preventing SARS-CoV-2. However, effectiveness may be reduced in patients with MM, likely due to a co-existing immunosuppression both due to the disease process as well as associated therapy. Future studies are needed to evaluate the relationship between MM disease states, types of therapy used and treatment timing that may impact vaccine effectiveness, and to also determine if MM patients would benefit from post-vaccination serologies or a booster vaccination. Disclosures Branch-Elliman: Gilead Pharmaceuticals: Research Funding. Brophy: Novartis: Research Funding. Munshi: Pfizer: Consultancy; Legend: Consultancy; Novartis: Consultancy; Adaptive Biotechnology: Consultancy; Karyopharm: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy; Oncopep: Consultancy, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company, Other: scientific founder, Patents & Royalties; Abbvie: Consultancy; Takeda: Consultancy; Amgen: Consultancy; Janssen: Consultancy; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy.


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (18_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9047-9047
Author(s):  
A. N. Amin ◽  
S. A. Stemkowski ◽  
J. Lin ◽  
G. Yang

9047 Background: This study evaluates whether clinicians are providing appropriate VTE prophylaxis to at-risk surgical and non- surgical cancer patients in accordance with ACCP guidelines. Methods: Premier's inpatient administrative data were used to assess VTE prophylaxis rates in fourteen cancer types. Patients age 40 or older, with a minimum length of stay of six days, and no contraindications for anti-coagulation were included in the study. Two rates were determined; the rate of discharges receiving any level of anticoagulation and the rate of patients receiving appropriate prophylaxis by comparing daily use of anti-coagulants and compression devices, dosage, and prophylaxis duration with ACCP recommendations. The 6th guidelines were used due to their release prior to the study period. Rates based on the 7th guidelines were calculated for the same patient cohort to assess how the revised guidelines affect our findings. Trends were assessed by comparing prophylaxis rates by quarter. Results: 72,391 discharges from 225 hospitals between January 2002 and September 2005 met the inclusion criteria. 29% of all at-risk cancer discharges received the recommended prophylaxis regimen. Rates varied by cancer type ranging from 18.7% in prostate to 36.3% in colorectal cancer discharges. 55% did not receive any anti-coagulation prophylaxis, 9.5% received insufficient dosage and 5.8% did not receive prophylaxis for the appropriate duration. The appropriate VTE prophylaxis rate is higher for surgical cancer than for non-surgical cancer discharges (32.3% vs. 27.7%). Trends suggest a slight increase in appropriate prophylaxis rates for all types of cancer discharges. Appropriate prophylaxis rates based on 7th guidelines are lower than rates based on the 6th guidelines due to the more specific recommendation in the 7th guidelines. Conclusions: Cancer patients are known to have significant risk for VTE, yet VTE prophylaxis for at-risk non-surgical cancer patients in hospitals is not optimal. Rates for surgical cancer patients were only slightly higher. Using the 7th recommendations results in lower prophylaxis rates. More effort is required to increase awareness of the ACCP recommendations for thromboprophylaxis in cancer patients. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 9562-9562 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. A. Habel ◽  
G. T. Ray ◽  
M. Horberg ◽  
B. Yawn ◽  
A. Castillo ◽  
...  

9562 Background: Given the limited available data, the aim of this study was to estimate the incidence of Herpes Zoster (HZ) in cancer patients. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, we used the Kaiser Permanente Northern California cancer registry to identify adult health plan members diagnosed with an invasive hematologic malignancy (HM) or solid tumor malignancy (STM) during 2001–2005. Potential episodes of HZ were ascertained from time of cancer diagnosis through 2006 from electronic databases using inpatient and outpatient diagnoses, laboratory tests, and prescriptions for antivirals. HZ diagnoses were confirmed by abstraction and clinical review of information from patients' inpatient and outpatient medical records. Incidence rates were calculated as the number of new occurrences of HZ per person-time of follow-up. Age-standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) were computed to compare HZ rates in cancer patients to reported rates in the general population (Yawn et al, 2007). Results: Among the 4,728 STM patients (mean age 66 years, range 18–102), the rate of HZ was 12/1000 person years (py) of follow-up (total 9170 py). Among the 1504 HM patients (mean age 67 years, range 18–97), the rate of HZ was 33/1000 py (total 2355 py). The SIRs and 95% confidence intervals for STM and HM were 1.7 (1.4–2.1) and 4.5 (3.5–5.6), respectively. Among patients with HM, incidence rates were highest in the first year after cancer diagnosis (40/1000 py); rates did not appear to vary markedly over time among patients with STM. For either cancer type, HZ rates were similar for males and females and did not increase consistently with increasing age. Conclusions: Compared to the general population, the incidence of HZ was nearly 2 times higher in patients with STM and over 4 times higher in patients with HM. HZ rates did not differ markedly by age or gender. [Table: see text]


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Okushi Yuichiro ◽  
Kenya Kusunose ◽  
Takayuki Ise ◽  
Takeshi Tobiume ◽  
Koji Yamaguchi ◽  
...  

Introduction: We sought to evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with cancer-associated VTE, compared with the matched cohort without cancer using real-world big data of VTE. Background: Cancer is associated with a high incidence of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) and there are many guidelines/recommendations about VTE. However, the prognosis of cancer-VTE patients is not well known because of a lack of big data. Moreover, there is also no knowledge on how cancer type is related to prognosis. Methods: This study was based on the Diagnosis Procedure Combination database in the Japanese Registry of All Cardiac and Vascular Datasets (JROAD-DPC). We identified 28,247 patients who were first hospitalized with VTE from April 2012 to March 2017. 26.0% were cancer patients. Compared with national statistics of cancer incidence in 2015 from National Cancer Center of Japan, the proportion of gynecological cancer patients was higher, but other cancer types had similar prevalence rates. Propensity score (PS) was estimated with logistic regression model, with cancer as the dependent variable and 18 clinically relevant covariates. Results: We included 24,576 patients after exclusion. The median age was 71years (range: 59-80 years), and 42.0% were male. On PS-matched analysis with 12,418 patients, patients with cancer had higher total in-hospital mortality (9.5% vs. 3.8%, P<0.001; OR, 2.72, 95% CI: 2.33-3.19) and in-hospital mortality within 30days (6.8% vs. 3.2%, P<0.001; OR, 2.20, 95% CI: 1.85-2.62). On analysis for each type of cancer, in-hospital mortality in 10 types of cancer was significantly high, especially pancreas (OR: 9.65, 95%CI: 4.31-21.64), biliary tract (OR: 8.36, 95%CI: 2.42-28.89) and liver (OR: 7.33, 95%CI: 1.92-28.02). Conclusions: Patients with cancer had a higher in-hospital mortality for VTE than those without cancer, especially in pancreatic, biliary tract and liver cancers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. S150-S150
Author(s):  
Rita Wilson Dib ◽  
Melissa Khalil ◽  
Johny Fares ◽  
Dima Dandachi ◽  
Ray Y Hachem ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Over the years, the profile of patients with invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) has extended beyond the commonly associated population with hematologic malignancy (HM) and is now comprising patients with solid tumors and patients with lung diseases. We therefore aimed to compare the clinical characteristics, diagnostic approach and therapeutic outcome of IPA in cancer patients with hematologic malignancies vs. solid tumor (ST). Methods We conducted a retrospective study evaluating consecutive cases of proven and probable IPA from March 2004 to December 2016 in a tertiary cancer center. We included patients >18 years with an underlying ST, HM, or Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation (HCT) within 1 year of IPA diagnosis. Results A total of 311 patients were analyzed: 225 had HM including HCT and 86 ST. Patients with ST were more likely to have had COPD (33% vs. 8%, P > 0.01) or other underlying pulmonary diseases when compared with HM patients (76% vs. 43%, P < 0.01). Radiation therapy prior to the infection was also notably higher in the ST group than the HM group (48% vs. 14%, P < 0.01). Patients with HM were more likely to have received steroid (38% vs. 15%, P = 0.0001) and have concurrent neutropenia 37% vs. 2%, P < 0.0001). A. fumigatus was most commonly recovered in patients with ST than in patients with HM (66% vs. 38%, P < 0.01). Monotherapy and voriconazole-based primary antifungal therapy were more often prescribed in patients with ST than in patients with HM (87% vs. 56%, P < 0.0001 and 77% vs. 53%, P = 0.0002 respectively). Complete or partial successful response to therapy was recorded in 66% of patients with ST compared with 40% in the HM group (P = 0.0001). IPA attributable mortality within 12 weeks was significantly higher in the HM than in the ST group (30% vs. 18%, P = 0.04). Conclusion Monotherapy with voriconazole were more often prescribed in patients with ST than in patients with HM. Patients with ST had a better response to antifungal therapy and a lower IPA attributable mortality within 12 weeks compared with those with HM. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.


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