A study of 656 people with various types of blood cancers who also had COVID-19 infection found that one out of five had died between April and November, based on an analysis of data from the ASH Research Collaborative COVID-19 Registry for Hematology . For those who needed hospital- or ICU-level care, 33% died. This international registry, which launched in April, is giving near real-time data to hematologists and other clinicians who are caring for patients amid the pandemic and offering important insights into which patients are most vulnerable to severe illness and death.
We have seen and continue to see that individuals with hematologic malignancies and COVID-19 infection appear to have more severe illness and a higher likelihood of death compared to the general population,” said lead study author, William A. Wood, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This heightened risk of severe infection or death among these patients is concentrated in certain groups of individuals, and data from our global registry has helped to understand this more clearly.