New York City Researches Preliminary Outcomes of COVID-19 for Gynecologic Cancer Patients

(August 6, 2020) Using medical records for 121 patients with gynecologic cancer and COVID-19, researchers were able to conduct an early look at the implications of a COVID-19 diagnosis on a patient with a gynecological cancer diagnosis. All of these patients were treated in the New York City area. Seventeen of the 121 patients (14.0%) passed of COVID-19 complications. 

According to researchers, “Among patients with [any] cancer, the overall case fatality with COVID-19 in NYC has been reported to be 25% for patients with solid tumors and 37% for patients with hematologic tumors…This discrepancy highlights tumor-specific differences that may affect COVID-19 survival and the need for large cancer-specific registries to accurately depict mortality rates.” 

The researchers acknowledge that “This study has several limitations”. The full paper can be read in Cancer.  

OCRA continues to track the effects of COVID-19 on cancer patients, and will have a session on the topic with the latest updates at the National Conference in late September.