Patients affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck: A population particularly prone to developing severe forms of COVID-19

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Patients affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck: A population particularly prone to developing severe forms of COVID-19 Via Experimental and therapeutic medicine Exp Ther Med. 2021 Nov;22(5):1298. doi: 10.3892/etm.2021.10733. Epub 2021 Sep 16. ABSTRACT Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the recent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has spread all over the world over the past year. Comorbidities appear to affect the prognosis of patients with such diseases, but the impact of cancer on the course of SARS-CoV2 has remained largely elusive. The aim of the present study is to analyze the outcome of patients affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) and a number of their comorbidities, if infected with SARS-CoV2. The clinical data of 100 patients affected by SCCHN, who were undergoing treatment or who had finished their oncologic treatment in the past 6 months, were retrospectively collected and analysed. For each patient, the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) was calculated to provide a score assessing the real weigh t of comorbidities on the patient's outcome at the time of diagnosis. It was discovered that these patients, besides the SCCHN, frequently presented at diagnosis with several other comorbidities, including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiac arrhytmia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and various forms of vasculopathy (and thus a poor CCI). This feature suggest that, given the high frequency of various comorbidities in patients with SCCHN, additional SARS-CoV2 infection could have particularly devastating consequences. PMID:34630653 | PMC:PMC8461515 | DOI:10.3892/etm.2021.10733 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.