Estimating excess mortality in people with cancer and multimorbidity in the COVID-19 emergency (April 2020)

Summary

Cancer and multiple non-cancer conditions are considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as high risk conditions in the COVID-19 emergency. Professional societies have recommended changes in cancer service provision to minimize COVID-19 risks to cancer patients and health care workers. However, we do not know the extent to which cancer patients, in whom multi-morbidity is common, may be at higher overall risk of mortality as a net result of multiple factors including COVID-19 infection, changes in health services, and socioeconomic factors.

This paper from Lai et al. predicts estimate of excess deaths in cancer patients related to the COVID-19 emergency using data from England, Northern Ireland and US.