Comparing the COVID-19 Mortality Rate in Cancer Patients with and Without a History of Chemotherapy

Abstract

Background: Patients with cancer are potentially vulnerable to COVID-19 infection due to the immune-compromised state of cancer or its treatment complications. Objectives: This study compared the COVID-19 mortality rate in cancer patients with and without a history of chemotherapy. Methods: This registry-based cohort study launched from March 2020 to March 2021 contains 2350 records in which 64 COVID-19 patients with cancer were included, of which 27 patients underwent the chemotherapy plan within eight weeks before confirmed COVID-19. In addition, age and sex were matched in patients without a history of cancer as a control group. Two groups of cancer patients with and without a history of chemotherapy compared to the control group using cox proportional hazard regression models in Stata.10 software. Results: Patients with cancer had a higher hazard for in-hospital mortality from COVID-19 infection (adjusted HR; 2.27, 95% CI: 1.25 - 4.13, P = 0.007) after adjusting for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), and co-morbidities. Our result showed no significant association between chemotherapy and control groups (adjusted HR; 1.65, 95% CI: 0.60 - 4.56, P = 0.33). Conclusions: Patients with cancer faced a risk of mortality from COVID-19 two times higher than those without cancer. However, chemotherapy did not increase the mortality following COVID-19 infection.