New Study Highlights Increased COVID-19 Risk for Adult Childhood Cancer Survivors

Even decades after their diagnosis, those who survived childhood cancer are more likely to get severe COVID-19. A recent study from the Karolinska Institute that was published in the journal The Lancet Regional Health - Europe shows this.

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Medical discoveries have enabled an increasing number of children to survive cancer. However, even after therapy has completed, health hazards may persist. In a recent registry study, researchers looked at how adult childhood cancer survivors in Sweden and Denmark were impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The study included more than 13,000 people who had been diagnosed with cancer before the age of 20 and were at least 20 years old when the pandemic struck. They were compared to both siblings and randomly selected persons from the population of the same gender and birth year.

The findings suggest that childhood cancer survivors had a decreased chance of developing COVID-19, but were 58% more likely to develop a serious disease once infected. Severe COVID-19 was defined as a patient requiring hospitalization, critical care, or death due to the infection.

It is important to understand that even though these individuals were not infected more often, the consequences were more serious when they did become ill.

Javier Louro, Study First Author and Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet

The risk differences were most noticeable during periods of strong transmission, such as when novel viral varieties like Alpha and Omicron spread quickly. The danger increased more in Sweden, where pandemic management was focused on suggestions rather than prohibitions, than in Denmark, where strong controls were implemented early on.

Louro added, “Our results suggest that childhood cancer survivors should be considered a risk group in future pandemics or other health crises. This could involve prioritising them for vaccination or offering special protection during periods of high transmission.”