What Is the Risk of COVID-19 in Patients with CLL?

Chaitra Ujjani, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, discusses research on the incidence and management of COVID-19 infections in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who were subsequently vaccinated.

“Patients with CLL have innate defects in their immune system and there are multiple aspects of their immune system that can be affected including B-cell function and T-cell response, as well as other things like neutrophil function and compliment,” she said.

The prospective, observational study was presented as a poster abstract at the 65th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition in San Diego, California.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic began, we began to realize that there was a higher mortality rate with patients who had CLL who developed COVID-19, and this also resulted in greater risk of hospitalization,” she said.

There were 243 patients enrolled in the initial vaccine cohort and 129 in the booster cohort, and 73 patients from the initial cohort enrolled into the booster cohort.

Dr. Ujjani and colleagues reported that “the incidence of COVID-19 to rise from 3.3% in the initial cohort to 25% in the booster cohort, likely due to the emergence of new variants and reduction in social distancing practices.”

Patients should still be cautious of the risk of COVID-19, Dr. Ujjani said.

“Moving forward, I think what patients with CLL need to understand is that while we may be out of pandemic status, COVID-19 is still an issue,” she said. “There are circulating variants, and patients with CLL are still vulnerable to them.”