New research shows that cancer patients who contract COVID-19 are nearly three times more likely to die that COVID-19 patients who do not have cancer, a new study shows.
Researchers studied 105 COVID-19 patients with cancer at 14 hospitals in Wuhan, China, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 24. They randomly selected COVID-19 patients at the same hospitals as a control group.
They found that compared to cancer-free COVID-19 patients, patients with cancer were 2.34 times more likely to die and 2.84 times to be admitted to the intensive care unit. COVID-19 patients with cancer also had a higher likelihood of having at least one severe or critical symptom and higher chances of needing invasive mechanical ventilation.
"In general, patients with cancer deteriorated more rapidly than those without cancer," researchers wrote.
The study was released at the American Association for Cancer Research's virtual annual meeting, April 27 and 28, and published in the journal Cancer Discovery, according to The Washington Post.