This year at BTOG 2021, we will be presenting some of the data from the OnCovid study which is the largest registry that has looked at the impact of COVID-19 in patients with cancer, with all types of cancer. And in particular, we’ll be presenting the most recent data on the UK impact of COVID-19 in patients with cancer. We have a registry that now contains more than 3000 patients treated, well diagnosed with COVID and treated for cancer across many different institutions in Europe...
This year at BTOG 2021, we will be presenting some of the data from the OnCovid study which is the largest registry that has looked at the impact of COVID-19 in patients with cancer, with all types of cancer. And in particular, we’ll be presenting the most recent data on the UK impact of COVID-19 in patients with cancer. We have a registry that now contains more than 3000 patients treated, well diagnosed with COVID and treated for cancer across many different institutions in Europe.
And what we have sadly found is that the likelihood of experiencing an adverse outcome was much higher in UK patients. So the mortality from COVID-19 was one and half times higher in the UK population, in the UK subcohort, of the OnCovid registry, which includes patients from Italy, Spain, UK, and many other countries in Europe, and also we found that the determinants underlying these increased mortality had to do essentially with the higher frailty of patients with cancer in the UK in particular.
So, when we looked at the UK data from the OnCovid study, we were actually quite surprised because there was a strong view over looking at UK outcomes specifically because the UK is the country where there has been the highest COVID-19 related mortality overall. So as of today, April 2021, you know, we’re counting over 127,000 deaths from COVID-19. We’ve had phases with, you know, very high transmission. There has been the so-called UK variant, which seemed to be sort of more aggressive or certainly spreading faster. So, there was a strong rationale to look at UK in particular as an era characterized by potentially worse outcomes. And when we confirmed these, you know, we really wanted to sort of have take-home messages for the practicing community and see what is it that we could improve now that COVID is sort of meant to unfortunately stay with us for much longer.
I think what the results are showing is that the UK patients are definitely more frailer, are characterized by worse outcomes. And I think this has practice informing implications. The roll-out of vaccination is heavily imprinted on age as the key factor. Co-morbidities are often taken into account, but I think in the cancer community its actually quite important that we recognize that patients with malignancy, especially those that have got a higher comorbid burden that are of older age should be prioritized for vaccination. And I think now that the vaccines are available in the UK, every clinician that looks after cancer patients should really be thinking proactively at obtaining, you know, vaccination for their patients as soon as possible.
It’s also true that some patients may not fully benefit from the vaccine. So, there is evidence to suggest that perhaps B-cell malignancies and hematological malignancies that are also the ones that are characterized by worse outcome overall from COVID-19, might have a weaker immune system. So, there is actually there are a lot of data gaps in cancer patients that hopefully will be filled by academic studies going forward.
