Cancer patients undergoing anti-cancer treatments and who are admitted to the hospital due to COVID-19, may face an elevated likelihood of experiencing venous thromboembolisms (VTE), which are potentially severe blood clots within the veins, revealed study published in the JAMA Oncology.

Potential Cancer Drug Links to Venous Thromboembolisms

The drugs, however, were not tied to a higher risk of arterial thromboembolism, said the researchers from the universities of California, Cincinnati, Texas. For the study, the team from across the US analysed data on 4,988 cancer patients worldwide who had lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 to December 2021.

They compared the 1,869 patients who had received systemic anti-cancer therapies such as endocrine therapy, immunomodulators, and chemotherapy in the 3 months before COVID-19 with those who hadn’t.

They also discovered that patients with thromboembolic events (TEEs) had high intensive care unit admission (46 percent) and mechanical ventilation (31 percent) rates. The risk of death in patients with TEEs was associated with poor physical abilities and active or progressing cancer.

Source: IANS