Association of COVID-19 and Cancer: Risk Statistics and Management of COVID-19 in Cancer Patients

Abstract

COVID-19 is extremely lethal disease and almost 190 countries are suffering from the latest pandemic. The literature indicates that COVID-19 is more prevalent in patients with compromised immune systems. Patients with cancer are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their immune compromised condition due to immunosuppressive therapy. Immunosuppressive therapy results in mixing or overlap of COVID-19 associated pneumonia and immune-related pneumonitis and thus makes the diagnostic process very confusing. On the other side in this pandemic, treating cancer patients in hospital will bring a lot of risk. There is still no strong evidence on the cancer and COVID-19 connection. Yet, in this pandemic, patients with cancer should be treated as special cases. Risk management is highly needed in the critical time of this pandemic. This review highlights the association between COVID-19 and cancer, and we also highlighted the strategies which should be used to minimize the risk of COVID-19 in cancer patients.

Keywords

• covid-19
• cancer
• review