Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) seroconversion in haematology‐oncology patients

Bird, Paul William; Badhwar, Vinay; Kennedy, Ben; Ladani, Sapna; Tang, Julian Wei‐Tze

Since the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2 in China at the end of 2019, the virus has spread rapidly across the globe leading to millions of infections and subsequent deaths. Although the virus infects those exposed indiscriminately, there are groups in society at an increased risk of severe infection, leading to increased morbidity. Patients suffering from haematological cancers, particularly leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma, may be one such group and previous studies have suggested that they may be at a 3‐4 times greater risk of severe COVID‐19 after SARS‐CoV‐2 infection, leading to admissions to ICU, mechanical ventilation, and death compared to those without such malignancies. Serological testing for IgG seroconversion has been extensively studied in the immunocompetent, but fewer publications have characterised this process in large series of immunocompromised patients. This study described 20 patients with haematological cancers who tested positive for SARS‐CoV‐2 via PCR with 12 of the patients receiving further serological testing. We found that of the 12 patients screened for SARS‐CoV‐2 IgG antibodies, only 2 (16.6%) were able to generate an immune response to the infection. Yet despite this low seroconversion rate in this cohort, none of these patients died or became particularly unwell with COVID‐19 or its related complications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.