TY - JOUR A1 - Hempel, Louisa A1 - Piehler, Armin A1 - Pfaffl, Michael W. A1 - Molnar, Jakob A1 - Kirchner, Benedikt A1 - Robert, Sebastian A1 - Veloso, Julia A1 - Gandorfer, Beate A1 - Trepotec, Zeljka A1 - Mederle, Stefanie A1 - Keim, Sabine A1 - Milani, Valeria A1 - Ebner, Florian A1 - Schweneker, Katrin A1 - Fleischmann, Bastian A1 - Kleespies, Axel A1 - Scheiber, Josef A1 - Hempel, Dirk A1 - Zehn, Dietmar T1 - SARS-CoV-2 infections in cancer outpatients—Most infected patients are asymptomatic carriers without impact on chemotherapy JF - Cancer Medicine N2 - Oncologic patients are regarded as the population most at risk of developing a severe course of COVID-19 due to the fact that malignant diseases and chemotherapy often weaken the immune system. In the face of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, how particular patients deal with this infection remains an important question. In the period between the 15 and 26 April 2020, a total of 1227 patients were tested in one of seven oncologic outpatient clinics for SARS-CoV-2, regardless of symptoms, employing RT-qPCR. Of 1227 patients, 78 (6.4%) were tested positive of SARS-CoV-2. Only one of the patients who tested positive developed a severe form of COVID-19 with pneumonia (CURB-65 score of 2), and two patients showed mild symptoms. Fourteen of 75 asymptomatic but positively tested patients received chemotherapy or chemo-immunotherapy according to their regular therapy algorithm (±4 weeks of SARS-CoV-2 test), and 48 of 78 (61.5%) positive-tested patients received glucocorticoids as co-medication. None of the asymptomatic infected patients showed unexpected complications due to the SARS-CoV-2 infection during the cancer treatment. These data clearly contrast the view that patients with an oncologic disease are particularly vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 and suggest that compromising therapies could be continued or started despite the ongoing pandemic. Moreover the relatively low appearance of symptoms due to COVID-19 among patients on chemotherapy and other immunosuppressive co-medication like glucocorticoids indicate that suppressing the response capacity of the immune system reduces disease severity. KW - COVID-19 Y1 - 2021 UR - https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.3435 VL - 9 IS - 21 SP - 8020 EP - 8028 ER -