ABSTRACT
In total, we identified five Caucasian patients from Wurzburg (Nos. 1-5) and three Asian patients from Wuhan (Nos. 6-8). The majority of the patients were male (n = 5, 63%), and the median age at COVID-19 diagnosis was 57 (range 39-83 years). The three patients from Wuhan were infected by COVID-19 in January or February 2020, while the Wurzburg patients were diagnosed in March or April 2020. Due to COVID-19 infection, anti-MM treatment was discontinued in all the patients. Notably, two patients (Nos. 3-4) in Wurzburg showed no COVID-19 symptoms, and the other three patients (Nos. 1, 2, and 5) exhibited only mild symptoms such as fever, cough, and nausea, which did not require an intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Interestingly, approximately 3 weeks after diagnosis, as the patient No. 6 was discharged and the swab was also negative for COVID-19, both COVID-19 IgM and IgG were tested negative in this patient. In four patients from Wurzburg, we also performed COVID-19 antibody test after recovery, and three of them (Nos. 1, 2, and 5) showed positive IgG, while one patient (No. 3) did not develop IgG or IgM against COVID-19. This finding suggested inadequate humoral immune response in MM patients, probably due to secondary immune deficiency caused by the treatments or the disease itself. This observation suggested that it might be a nosocomial infection in this patient. After recovery, two patients from Wurzburg received MM therapy, i.e., lenalidomide maintenance in one patient and DARA-VRCD (daratumumab, bortezomib, lenalidomide, cyclophosphamide, and dexamethasone) in another patient with NDMM.