ABSTRACT
Currently, experience with COVID-19 in multiple myeloma (MM) is still very limited. Terefore, we conducted this analysis of MM patients infected by COVID-19 from two prominent hematology centers in Wuhan and Wurzburg (Union Hospital of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China and University Hospital of Wurzburg, Wurzburg, Germany) as of 9 June 2020. In total, we identifed fve Caucasian patients from Wurzburg and three Asian patients from Wuhan. The majority of the patients were male (n=5, 63%), and the median age at COVID-19 diagnosis was 57 (range 39-83 years). Tree patients had newly diagnosed (ND) MM, and two of them were therapy naive at diagnosis of COVID-19. One patient from Wuhan was receiving the second cycle of VTD (bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone) as the first line therapy. In Wuhan, a patient with extramedullary progression (No. 6) received leukapheresis to prepare for a salvage chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy. Due to COVID-19 infection, systemic anti-MM treatment was discontinued in all eight patients. Notably, two patients in Wurzburg showed no COVID-19 symptoms, and the other three patients exhibited only mild symptoms such as fever, cough, and nausea, which did not require an intensive care unit (ICU) admission. Tree patients did not receive any COVID-19 treatment, and all fve patients in Wurzburg recovered. In contrast, two patients from Wuhan developed severe respiratory syndrome so that mechanical ventilation and circulatory support were needed. The patient who was receiving the frontline therapy with VTD also had an elevated procalcitonin value (30.05 ng/ml), suggesting an additional bacterial infection, and this patient died due to acute respiratory failure. In addition, two out of fve patients in our cohort did not show positive IgM or IgG for COVID-19 afer recovery. In summary, our observations showed that COVID-19 infection could be severe especially in NDMM, and also suggested inadequate humoral immune response in MM patients, probably due to secondary immune defciency caused by the treatments or the disease itself. Surprisingly, the MM patients in Wurzburg did not present any signs of severe COVID-19 infection. Other than Wuhan where COVID-19 was reported for the first time, in Europe, the pandemic had already been announced, and in Germany the lock-down came relatively early in comparison to other countries.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To describe 2 cases of autoimmune neutropenia (AIN) patients infected with Sars-Cov-2. Design/Method: Two subjects case report. Result(s): Case report 1: A girl with primary AIN since 1 year and 10 months old, maintaining severe neutropenia and mild recurrent infections. Presented to the emergency department in June/2020, at 3 years and 8 months old, with flu-like symptoms, afebrile, in good general condition. Physical examination was normal. The absolute neutrophil count (ANC) was 0.279 x 109/L. At hospital admission, Sars-Cov-2 (RT-PCR) tested positive and filgrastim (G-CSF) 5 mug/kg/day was initiated. Chest X-ray was also normal and blood culture resulted negative. She remained in great general condition, afebrile, and was discharged on the 2nd day of hospitalization, with clarithromycin (15 mg/kg/day). After G-CSF, ANC: 0.494 x 109/L (1st dose), 1.431 x 109/L (2nd dose). On outpatient follow-up, she had no long-term complications from Covid-19. Case Report 2: A man with chronic immune thrombocytopenia purpura (ITP) since 2008, autoimmune hemolytic anemia since 2013, evolved with AIN on May/2020, at 42 years old, with ANC lower than 0.5 x 109/L. On 6/1/2020, he had ANC 0.170 x 109/L. On 6/25/2020, he started flu-like symptoms, had ANC of 5.118 x 109/L, and tested positive for Sars-Cov-2 (RT-PCR). He kept high fever (102,2degreeF) and was hospitalized for 10 days without use of G-CSF. After discharge, on outpatient follow-up, he had no long-term complications from Covid-19, and presented ANC 0.338 x 109/L (Aug/2020). Discussion(s): At beginning of Covid-19 pandemic, severity infection in children was unknown. Today is known that most of them have milder clinical course, regardless of chronic diseases. In adults, in contrast, the inflammatory response tends to exacerbation, with more severe clinical conditions. Furthermore, many case reports of patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 with comorbidities literature are published. However, to date there are no reports on the impact of COVID-19 in AIN patients. Increased neutrophil counts during infectious episodes are common in AIN, which appears to be related to the benign course of most infections. We reported 2 cases of AIN patients diagnosed with Covid-19, both with favorable clinical outcomes despite heterogenic clinical course. On the first case, she presented few symptoms and ANC increased only after using G-CSF. On the second reported patient, there was a spontaneous increase of ANC and greater inflammatory response than the first case. It could suggest a correlation between inflammatory response to COVID-19 and ANC in cases of autoimmune neutropenia. Conclusion(s): In the reported cases, clinical course of disease and neutrophil count were different between adult and pediatric patients. It is not possible to state whether this difference is due to age group, individual response to infection or other variables. It is important to assess other cases of AIN infected by COVID 19 to better understand correlation between severity of infection and neutrophil count response. Copyright © 2022