SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: The Italian Hematology Alliance on COVID-19 cohort

Ce dossier présente un ensemble d'articles concernant la prise en charge des cancers durant la crise sanitaire liée au COVID-19

Résumé en anglais

COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, is still afflicting thousands of people across the globe. Few studies on COVID-19 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are available. Here, we analyzed data from the CLL cohort of the Italian Hematology Alliance on COVID-19 (NCT04352556), which included 256 CLL patients enrolled between February 25, 2020 and February 1, 2021. Median age was 70 years (range 38-94) with male preponderance (60.1%). Approximately half of patients (n=127) had received at least one line of therapy for CLL, including 108 (83.7%) who were on active treatment at the time of COVID-19 or received their last therapy within 12 months. Most patients (230/256, 89.9%) were symptomatic at COVID-19 diagnosis and the majority required hospitalization (n=176). Overall, after a median follow-up of 42 days (IQR 24-96), case fatality rate was 30.1%, and it was 37.5% and 24.4% in the first (February 25, 2020 – June 22, 2020) and second wave (June 23, 2020 – February 1, 2021), respectively (p=0.03). At multivariate analysis, male sex (HR 1.82, 95% CI 1.03-3.24, p=0.04), age over than 70 years (HR 2.23, 95% CI 1.23-4.05, p=0.01), any treatment for CLL given in the last 12 months (HR 1.72, 95% CI 1.04-2.84, p=0.04) and COVID-19 severity (severe: HR 5.66, 95% CI 2.62-12.33, p<0.0001; critical: HR 15.99, 95% CI 6.93-36.90, p<0.0001) were independently associated with poor survival. In summary, we report a dismal COVID-related outcome in a significant fraction of CLL patients, that can be nicely predicted by clinical parameters. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.