{"doi":"10.1093/jnci/djaa159","title":"Prevalence and Outcome of COVID-19 Infection in Cancer Patients: A National Veterans Affairs Study","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Emerging data suggest variability in susceptibility and outcome to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Identifying risk factors associated with infection and outcomes in cancer patients is necessary to develop healthcare recommendations. METHODS: We analyzed electronic health records of the US Veterans Affairs Healthcare System and assessed the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in cancer patients. We evaluated the proportion of cancer patients tested for COVID-19 who were positive, as well as outcome attributable to COVID-19, and stratified by clinical characteristics including demographics, comorbidities, cancer treatment, and cancer type. All statistical tests are 2-sided. RESULTS: Of 22 914 cancer patients tested for COVID-19, 1794 (7.8%) were positive. The prevalence of COVID-19 was similar across age. Higher prevalence was observed in African American (15.0%) compared with White (5.5%; P < .001) and in patients with hematologic malignancy compared with those with solid tumors (10.9% vs 7.8%; P < .001). Conversely, prevalence was lower in current smokers and patients who recently received cancer therapy (<6 months). The COVID-19-attributable mortality was 10.9%. Higher attributable mortality rates were observed in older patients, those with higher Charlson comorbidity score, and in certain cancer types. Recent (<6 months) or past treatment did not influence attributable mortality. Importantly, African American patients had 3.5-fold higher COVID-19-attributable hospitalization; however, they had similar attributable mortality as White patients. CONCLUSION: Preexistence of cancer affects both susceptibility to COVID-19 infection and eventual outcome. The overall COVID-19-attributable mortality in cancer patients is affected by age, comorbidity, and specific cancer types; however, race or recent treatment including immunotherapy do not impact outcome.","journal":"JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute","year":2020,"id":54586,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":102,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8979,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":280990,"name":"Jennifer La","orcid":"0000-0003-2266-0221","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":280991,"name":"Raphaël Szalat","orcid":"0000-0002-6198-3405","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":280992,"name":"David Tuck","orcid":"0000-0001-7313-5158","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":280993,"name":"Vinh Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0001-8886-0117","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":283330,"name":"Cenk Yildirim","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":56409,"name":"Nhan V. Do","orcid":"0000-0001-6868-7011","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11348,"name":"Mary T. Brophy","orcid":"0000-0003-2314-4368","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":43087,"name":"Nikhil Munshi","orcid":"0000-0002-8397-100X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":56417,"name":"Nathanael R. Fillmore","orcid":"0000-0002-8058-3423","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":21,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:04:14.743014Z","pmid":"33031532","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}