Cancer Medicine (Dec 2021)

Clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and outcomes of COVID‐19 in cancer and non‐cancer patients from a tertiary Cancer Centre in India

  • Sumeet P. Mirgh,
  • Anant Gokarn,
  • Akhil Rajendra,
  • Ashwini More,
  • Sujit Kamtalwar,
  • Kritika S. Katti,
  • Anuj Singh,
  • Vasu Babu Goli,
  • Rahul Ravind,
  • Ravikrishna Madala,
  • Sangeeta Kakoti,
  • Priyamvada Maitre,
  • Sachin Punatar,
  • Akanksha Chichra,
  • Amar Patil,
  • Bhakti Trivedi,
  • Amit Joshi,
  • Nikhil Patkar,
  • Prashant Tembhare,
  • Twinkle Khanka,
  • Sweta Rajpal,
  • Gaurav Chatterjee,
  • Sadhana Kannan,
  • P.G. Subramanian,
  • Vedang Murthy,
  • Nitin Shetty,
  • Preeti Chavan,
  • Vivek Bhat,
  • Sudhir Nair,
  • Navin Khattry,
  • Sudeep Gupta

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.4379
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 24
pp. 8777 – 8788

Abstract

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Abstract Background There is paucity of data regarding clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and outcomes of coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) in cancer versus non‐cancer patients, particularly from India. Materials and Methods This was an observational, single‐centre, retrospective analysis of patients with laboratory‐confirmed COVID‐19 hospitalised in our institution between 22 May 2020 and 1 December 2020. We compared baseline clinical characteristics, laboratory parameters and outcomes of COVID‐19 (overall mortality, time to discharge) between cancer and non‐cancer patients. Results A total of 200 COVID‐19 infection episodes were analysed of which 109 (54.5%) were patients with cancer and 91 (45.5%) were patients without cancer. The median age was 43 (interquartile range [IQR]:32–57), 51 (IQR: 33–62) and 38 (IQR: 31.5–49.3) years; of whole cohort, cancer and non‐cancer patients, respectively. Comparison of outcomes showed that oxygen requirement (31.2% [95% CI: 22.6–40.7] vs. 17.6% [95% CI: 10.4–26.9]; p = 0.03), median time to discharge (11 days [IQR: 6.75–16] vs. 6 days [IQR: 3–9.75]; p 1 mg% (12.8% vs. 0%; p = 0.027; OR: 24.69), serum procalcitonin >0.05 ng/ml (22.65% vs. 0%; p = 0.004; OR: 4.49) and interleukin‐6 >6 pg/ml (10.8% vs. 1.3%; p = 0.036; OR: 3.08). In multivariable logistic regression, factors significantly associated with mortality were oxygen requirement (p = 0.005; OR: 13.11) and high baseline procalcitonin level (p = 0.014; OR: 37.6). Conclusion Cancer patients with COVID‐19 have higher mortality and require longer hospital stay. High procalcitonin levels and oxygen requirement during admission are other factors that affect outcomes adversely.

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