Patients Recently Treated for B-lymphoid Malignancies Show Increased Risk of Severe COVID-19
Samuel M. Rubinstein, Divaya Bhutani, Ryan C. Lynch, Chih-Yuan Hsu, Yu Shyr, Shailesh Advani, Ruben A. Mesa, Sanjay Mishra, Daniel P. Mundt, Dimpy P. Shah, R. Alejandro Sica, Keith E. Stockerl-Goldstein, Catherine Stratton, Matthias Weiss, Alicia Beeghly-Fadiel, Melissa Accordino, Sarit E. Assouline, Joy Awosika, Ziad Bakouny, Babar Bashir, Stephanie Berg, Mehmet Asim Bilen, Cecilia A. Castellano, Jacob C. Cogan, Devendra KC, Christopher R. Friese, Shilpa Gupta, Daniel Hausrath, Clara Hwang, Nathalie A. Johnson, Monika Joshi, Anup Kasi, Elizabeth J. Klein, Vadim S. Koshkin, Nicole M. Kuderer, Daniel H. Kwon, Chris Labaki, Tahir Latif, Eric Lau, Xuanyi Li, Gary H. Lyman, Rana R. McKay, Gayathri Nagaraj, Amanda Nizam, Taylor K. Nonato, Adam J. Olszewski, Hyma V. Polimera, Andrew J. Portuguese, Matthew M. Puc, Pedram Razavi, Rachel Rosovski, Andrew Schmidt, Sumit A. Shah, Aditi Shastri, Christopher Su, Pallawi Torka, Trisha M. Wise-Draper, Leyre Zubiri, Jeremy L. Warner, Michael A. Thompson
Abstract
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.