High mortality of cancer patients in times of SARS-Cov-2: do not generalize!
Ce dossier présente un ensemble d'articles concernant la prise en charge des cancers durant la crise sanitaire liée au COVID-19
Being heavily involved in the treatment of cancer patients in times of the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic, we read with great interest the papers of Assaad et al and Yarza et al in the Eur J Cancer. Assaad et al performed an exciting retrospective analysis of 302 cancer patients presenting between March 1st to April 15th in the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Lyon with a suspicion of COVID-19.3 In 55 (18.2%) them the Cobas real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR, Roche, Neuilly) was positive for SARS-CoV-2, and in 247 (81.8%) it proved to be negative. Computed tomography scanning of the chest was suspect in respectively 27 (67.5%) and 59 (29.5%) of both groups. Thirty of the patients (9.9%) died during the observation period, the majority (24/30, 80%) with metastatic disease. Surprisingly mortality was not statistically different in the PCR-positive compared to the PCR-negative patients, respectively 8/55 (14.5%) versus 22/247 (8.9%) at 25 days. Although the authors are right to state that COVID-19 is underdiagnosed with current diagnostic test methods it is at least misleading to claim that cancer patients presenting with a cough, fever, muscle pain, diarrhea, muscle pain, anosmia or neurological problems have unrecognized COVID-19. (…)
European Journal of Cancer , éditorial en libre accès, 2019