Clinical Progression and Outcomes of Glioma Patients Infected with COVID-19

Background: Patients with cancer were susceptible to COVID-19 have been reported in previous study. The clinical progression and outcomes of patients with glioma infected COVID-19 have not been reported until now. Methods: We included all patients with glioma infected with COVID-19 who were admitted to Wuhan Tongji Hospital in China in this retrospective study. We also enrolled glioma patients without COVID-19 at the same time as controls. We collected and analyzed clinical data from medical records and evaluated outcomes for patients with glioma infected with COVID-19. Cox proportional hazard model was used to evaluate whether the infection with COVID-19 was independent risk of progression for glioma. Results: From Jan 19 to April 1, 2020, ten patients with glioma infected with COVID-19 and forty glioma patients without COVID-19 were included in this study. The incidence of COVID-19 in glioma patients with was 0.52% (10 of 1926 COVID-19 total hospitalizations). Of ten patients, four had low-grade glioma, three had grade III glioma, two had glioblastoma (GBM),, and one had medulloblastoma, with a mean age of 58±18.3 years (range 13-71 years). Clinical symptoms were fever (nine [90.0%] patients), cough (six [60%] patient), anhelation (five [50%] patients), diarrhea (one [10.0%] patient) and muscle pain (one [10.0%] patient). One patient with GBM progressed to ARDS and died of severe respiratory failure, one patient with GBM was transferred to the ICU because of progression to ARDS, and the remaining eight patients were discharged. The Cox regress analysis showed that progression-free survival of glioma patients without COVID-19 was significantly longer than glioma pa - tients with COVID-19. (hazard ratio [HR] 0.083, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.007-0.960, P = 0.046). Conclusions: O ur findings suggested that progression-free survival of glioma patients without COVID-19 was significantly longer than glioma patients with COVID-19. Patients with glioma infected with COVID-19 were more higher risk to deteriorate in progression than those patients without COVID-19 during follow-up period.