Coronavirus: lethal for one in 3 cancer patients

(ANSA) - ROME, JULY 31 - Covid-19 can cause the death of one patient out of three and the risk doubles in men, in addition to increasing with age. This was revealed by the international study OnCovid just published in Cancer Discovery, the official journalist of the American Association for Research on Cancer (AACR).
    The study coordinated by the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara provides for the first time in the world an accurate analysis of the history of nearly 900 cancer patients hospitalized for Coronavirus infection in 19 Italian, English, Spanish and German centers. The first data that emerges is that male patients are at the greatest risk: mortality is in fact 41% against 26% of women. The positive news, however, is that timely intervention with anti-Covid therapies with antivirals, antimalarials or tocilizumab, is associated with a 60% reduction in mortality, regardless of all other risk factors.
    "Infection leads to death in 33% of contumor patients, with significant differences between countries: in the United Kingdom it rises to 44% compared to 33% in Italy", explains Alessandra Gennari, associate professor of oncology in the Department of Translational Medicine of the University of Eastern Piedmont in Novara. "Being subjected to cancer therapies does not affect Covid-19 mortality" while there are "substantial differences related to the characteristics of the patient". Mortality, adds David Pinato, international coordinator of the study and professor at the Imperial College of London, "was in fact 43% in the over 65 against 19% in younger cancer patients and also doubles in patients with more than two concomitant diseases in addition to cancer ". The risk is "lower and for reasons not yet clear in patients with breast cancer compared to all other types of cancer". (HANDLE).