Incidence and outcomes of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer

Caffo, Orazio; Gasparro, Donatello; Di Lorenzo, Giuseppe; Volta, Alberto Dalla; Guglielmini, Pamela; Zucali, Paolo; Bortolus, Roberto; Cavo, Alessia; Ceresoli, Giovanni; Chiari, Rita; Fornarini, Giuseppe; Fratino, Lucia; Iaculli, Alessandro; Maruzzo, Marco; Masini, Cristina; Morelli, Franco; Mucciarini, Claudia; Procopio, Giuseppe; Sabbatini, Roberto; Verri, Elena; Kinspergher, Stefania; Maines, Francesca; Messina, Carlo; Veccia, Antonello; Donini, Maddalena

BACKGROUND: Patients with cancer are at increased risk of complicated severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, but it is still unclear if the risk of mortality is influenced by cancer type or ongoing anti-cancer treatments. An interesting debate concerning the potential relationship between androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and SARS-CoV-2 infection has recently been opened in the case of prostate cancer (PC), and the aim of this multi-centre cohort study was to investigate the incidence and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostrate cancer (mCRPC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the clinical records of patients with mCRPC who developed SARS-CoV-2 infection, and recorded their baseline clinical characteristics, their history of PC and SARS-CoV-2 infection, and their oncological status and treatment at the time of infection. The primary study end point was the death rate and the possible impact of the patients' PC-related history and treatments on mortality. RESULTS: Thirty-four of the 1433 patients with mCRPC attending the participating centres (2.3%) developed SARS-CoV-2 infection, 22 (64.7%) of whom were hospitalised. Most of the patients were symptomatic, the most frequent symptoms being fever (70.6%), dyspnoea (61.8%), cough (52.9%) and fatigue (38.2%). After a median follow-up of 21 days (interquartile range: 13–41), 13 patients had died (38.2%), 17 recovered (50.0%) and four (11.7%) were still infected. The number of treatments previously administered for mCRPC had a significant impact on mortality (p = 0.004). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings contribute additional data to the current debate concerning the postulated protective role of ADT, which seems to be less in patients with metastatic PC.