Clinical outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in cancer patients with prior exposure to immune checkpoint inhibitors

摘要

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected over 6,000,000 people globally [1]. Patients with COVID-19 manifest with symptoms of fever, dry cough, dyspnea, and present with radiological changes that are consistent with atypical pneumonia [2]. Pathogenetic mechanisms for these abnormalities involve the systemic immune response that is associated with the hyperactivation of peripheral CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, and a cytokine storm [3]. Globally, the reported prevalence of patients with COVID-19 and cancer ranges from 0.5% to 6.0% in the different case series [4]. Consistent with these studies, we had previously reported that patients with cancer harbored an approximately 2-fold higher risk of COVID-19 than non-cancer patients, thereby indicating that this group of patients represents a susceptible population [5].