Could COVID-19 induce remission of acute leukemia?
Eman Z Kandeel1, Lobna Refaat1, Raafat Abdel-Fatah2
1Clinical Pathology Department, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
Background:
COVID-19 viral pandemic caused many mortalities in cancer patients especially those with hematological malignancies. The immunological response to COVID-19 infection is responsible for the outcome of cases whether mild, severe or critical.
Case Presentation:
Two cases presented with moderate COVID-19 viral infection, concomitant with acute myeloid leukemia and T acute lymphoblastic leukemia, respectively. Surprisingly, after the administration of COVID-19 supportive therapy, the cases showed disease remission after a follow-up period of 12 and 5 months, respectively. Additionally, the blast cells dropped to only 3% and 0% in the bone marrow aspirates of those two cases, respectively, after it was 30% in both cases at diagnosis.
Conclusion:
The immune response that emerged against COVID-19 infection could potentially produce anti-tumor immunity in some patients, or the virus may act as an oncolytic virus. However, further investigations are required to explain this phenomenon, which may help in finding a possible new targeted therapy for these cases.
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