Higher Death Rates Found among Cancer Patients with COVID-19

Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I) Director Justin Bekelman, MD, is quoted by The Wall Street Journal in a major article on the risk of death from COVID-19 among patients with cancer–both active and in remission. A new study in The Lancet of 928 COVID-19 patients in the U.S., Canada, and Spain suggests that the death rate in cancer patients with COVID-19 is significantly higher than in the general population. The study found that 13% of COVID-19 patients with cancer that was either active or in remission died within 30 days of diagnosis with the novel coronavirus, more than double the 5.9% death rate in the general U.S. population.

This study confirms the idea that patients with cancer are at a higher risk of sickness and death from COVID-19

Justin Bekelman, MD

Read the full story in The Wall Street Journal.