Lancet haematol: Clinical characteristics and adverse prognostic factors in patients with blood malignancies infected with COVID-19.

Several small studies on COVID-19 and blood malignancies have shown high mortality rates in these patients.
goal of the Italian COVID-19 Hematology Alliance is to collect data on adult patients with blood malignancies that require hospitalization due to COVID-19.
the data was published recently in the Lancet Hematology journal.
The study was a multi-center retrospective cohort study that included patients with confirmed COVID-19 infections and associated symptoms who were hospitalized between 25 February and 18 May 2020.
end point is the assessment of potential predictive parameters for mortality and mortality.
22 June 2020, 536 patients were included, with a mid-level follow-up period of 20 days (IQR 10-34), of which 85 (16%) were managed as outpatients.
440 (98%) of the 451 hospitalized patients in the hospital were discharged or died alive.
198 (37 per cent) of the 536 patients died.
the study had a standardized mortality rate of 2.04 (95% CI 1.77-2.34) compared to the general Italian population infected with COVID-19.
the study cohort had a standardized mortality rate of 41.3 (38.1-44.9) compared to patients with non-COVID-19 infected blood malignancies. Grade
seniors, progression periods, confirmed AML, inert non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, invasive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or plasma cell tumors, and severe or critical COVID-19 were all associated with worse overall prognosis.
This study proves once again that the prognostication of infection with COVID-19 in patients with blood malignancies is worse than in the general person infected with COVID-19 or in patients with blood malignancies who are not infected with COVID-19.
mortality rates in patients hospitalized with blood malignancies due to COVID-19 highlight the need for active infection prevention strategies, at least until effective vaccination or treatment strategies are in available.
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