comparing the covid-19 mortality rate in cancer patients with and without a history of chemotherapy

Background: patients with cancer are potentially vulnerable to covid-19 infection due to the immune-compromised state of cancer or its treatment complications. objectives: this study compared the covid-19 mortality rate in cancer patients with and without a history of chemotherapy. methods: this registry-based cohort study launched from march 2020 to march 2021 contains 2350 records in which 64 covid-19 patients with cancer were included, of which 27 patients underwent the chemotherapy plan within eight weeks before confirmed covid-19. in addition, age and sex were matched in patients without a history of cancer as a control group. two groups of cancer patients with and without a history of chemotherapy compared to the control group using cox proportional hazard regression models in stata.10 software. results: patients with cancer had a higher hazard for in-hospital mortality from covid-19 infection (adjusted hr; 2.27, 95% ci: 1.25 - 4.13, p = 0.007) after adjusting for age, sex, body mass index (bmi), and co-morbidities. our result showed no significant association between chemotherapy and control groups (adjusted hr; 1.65, 95% ci: 0.60 - 4.56, p = 0.33). conclusions: patients with cancer faced a risk of mortality from covid-19 two times higher than those without cancer. however, chemotherapy did not increase the mortality following covid-19 infection.