ABSTRACT
Background: Patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) infection and a diagnosis of cancer are at high risk of severe symptomatic disease (COVID-19) and death. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies, to estimate the case-fatality rate (CFR) of patients with solid or hematological tumors and SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods: A systematic search of PubMed library up to 31 January, 2021, was performed in order to identify publications reporting the CFR among adult patients with solid or hematological tumors and SARS-CoV-2 infection. CFR was defined as the rate of deaths among SARS-CoV-2-positive cancer patients. Moreover, we separately assessed the CFR among patients with lung and breast cancer. Studies with at least 10 patients were included. The CFR was assessed through a random effect model, and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. The Higgins I2 index was computed to assess the heterogeneity between studies. Results: The systematic search of the literaturereturned 1,727studies. 1,551 were excluded on the basis of the title, 29 based on the abstract, and 3 were duplicates. A total of 144 studies were selected, including 35,725 patients with solid or hematological tumors and SARS-CoV-2 infection. In total, 46 and 32 studies reported the CFR among COVID-19 patients with lung (total N = 1,555) and breast (total N = 1.398) cancer, respectively. Overall, the CFR was 25.5% (95% CI 23.1%-28.1%, Egger test p < 0.001). A sensitivity analysis, after excluding studies with less than 100 patients, showed a CFR of 22.1% (95% CI 19.4%-25.2%). The CFR among patients with lung cancer and SARSCoV2 infection was 33.4% (95% CI 28.1%-39.6%) when including all studies and 26.3% (95% CI 17.6%-39.2%) at the sensitivity analysis after excluding studies with less than 100 patients. The CFR among patients with breast cancer and SARS-CoV2 infection was 13.7% (95% CI 9.1%-20.7%) when including all studies and 13.0% (95% CI 7.6%-22.1%) at the sensitivity analysis after excluding studies with less than 100 patients. Conclusions: One year after the outbreak of the pandemic, this large metaanalysis reports the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with cancer. This population experienced a high probability of mortality, with a comparatively higher CFR in patients with lung cancer, and a comparatively lower CFR in patients with breast cancer. Patients with an underlying diagnosis of cancer require special attention with aggressive preventive measures that also include early access to COVID-19 vaccination.