Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

MDPI, Biomedicines, 12(10), p. 3069, 2022

DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines10123069

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

COVID-19 in Patients with Hematologic Diseases

Journal article published in 2022 by Ilaria Carola Casetti ORCID, Oscar Borsani ORCID, Elisa Rumi
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak had a strong impact on people’s lives all over the world. Patients with hematologic diseases have been heavily affected by the pandemic, because their immune system may be compromised due to anti-cancer or immunosuppressive therapies and because diagnosis and treatment of their baseline conditions were delayed during lockdowns. Hematologic malignancies emerged very soon as risk factors for severe COVID-19 infection, increasing the mortality rate. SARS-CoV2 can also induce or exacerbate immune-mediated cytopenias, such as autoimmune hemolytic anemias, complement-mediated anemias, and immune thrombocytopenia. Active immunization with vaccines has been shown to be the best prophylaxis of severe COVID-19 in hematologic patients. However, the immune response to vaccines may be significantly impaired, especially in those receiving anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies or immunosuppressive agents. Recently, antiviral drugs and monoclonal antibodies have become available for pre-exposure and post-exposure prevention of severe COVID-19. As adverse events after vaccines are extremely rare, the cost–benefit ratio is largely in favor of vaccination, even in patients who might be non-responders; in the hematological setting, all patients should be considered at high risk of developing complications due to SARS-CoV2 infection and should be offered all the therapies aimed to prevent them.