RESUMEN
Cancer patients are vulnerable to complications of respiratory viruses. This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to examine the prevalence of cancer and its association with disease severity in patients with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Searches were performed in MEDLINE, EMBASE and ScienceDirect from their inception until 28 April 2020. Severe disease was considered to encompass cases resulting in death or as defined by the primary study authors. Meta-analysis was performed using random-effect models. We included 20 studies involving 32,404 patients from China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Singapore, Thailand, France, India and South Korea. The pooled prevalence of cancer was 3.50% (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.70 to 5.80). The pooled prevalence was not moderated by study mean age, proportion of females or whether the study was conducted in/outside of China. Patients with cancer were more likely to experience severe COVID-19 disease compared to patients without cancer (pooled risk ratio 1.76, 95% CI 1.39 to 2.23). Our findings reiterate the need for additional precautionary measures to ensure that patients with cancer are not exposed to COVID-19, and if they become infected, extra attention should be provided to minimise their risk of adverse outcomes.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of olfactory and gustatory dysfunctions (OGDs) among patients infected with novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). METHODS: A systematic review was conducted by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the preprint server MedRxiv from their inception until May 11, 2020, using the terms anosmia or hyposmia or dysosmia or olfactory dysfunction or olfaction disorder or smell dysfunction or ageusia or hypogeusia or dysgeusia or taste dysfunction or gustatory dysfunction or neurological and COVID-19 or 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2. The references of included studies were also manually screened. Only studies involving patients with diagnostic-confirmed COVID-19 infection were included. Random-effects meta-analysis was performed. RESULTS: Twenty-four studies with data from 8438 patients with test-confirmed COVID-19 infection from 13 countries were included. The pooled proportions of patients presenting with olfactory dysfunction and gustatory dysfunction were 41.0% (95% CI, 28.5% to 53.9%) and 38.2% (95% CI, 24.0% to 53.6%), respectively. Increasing mean age correlated with lower prevalence of olfactory (coefficient = -0.076; P=.02) and gustatory (coefficient = -0.073; P=.03) dysfunctions. There was a higher prevalence of olfactory dysfunctions with the use of objective measurements compared with self-reports (coefficient = 2.33; P=.01). No significant moderation of the prevalence of OGDs by sex was observed. CONCLUSION: There is a high prevalence of OGDs among patients infected with COVID-19. Routine screening for these conditions could contribute to improved case detection in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, to better inform population screening measures, further studies are needed to establish causality.