From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, cancer patients have been deemed a high-risk group for COVID, despite the lack of any concrete evidence.
Now a new study from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, published in a special issue of the journal Cancers devoted to COVID-19, indicates this might not be the case.
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The study attempted to characterize COVID-19 infection among cancer patients undergoing anti-neoplastic treatment, as well as healthcare providers, at a tertiary cancer center.
Following Israel's first lockdown, which took effect on March 15, both groups experienced similar exposure levels through visits limited to Rambam's oncology center, an isolated building on the medical center campus. The study consisted of 164 patients treated during the last week of March 2020 and followed until June 2020, and 107 health care providers studied from the same time.
The study showed that over a two-month period, both the patients and the health care workers saw a 2% rate of asymptomatic COVID cases. Participants submitted to serologic testing three times.
Moreover, according to Rambam Medical Center, there were no documented cases of COVID among the 8,500 cancer patients who visited its oncology facility between December 2019 and May 2020.
