Soon, pan-India Covid registry of cancer-hit at PGI

Naina Mishra

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13

A registry of Covid patients affected with haematological malignancies will soon come up at the PGI, in collaboration with major cancer institutes of the country.

Haematological malignancies are cancers that affect blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. It will be a pan-India registry and will be called ‘Covid Haematological Registry of India’.

Dr Malhotra added: “We have to identify the reasons for fast deterioration of cancer patients’ condition after they contract Covid. Secondly, there is no clarity on whether any Covid vaccine will work for them. All these ambiguities need to be addressed and that’s why, we are collecting the data of cancer patients with Covid.”

It has been learnt that Covid-19 is life-threatening in patients with haematological malignancies. Reportedly, cancer patients have an increased risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 than the general population and, if infected, also have a higher risk of developing severe illness.

The Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre, Rohini (Delhi), had also studied Covid-19 mortality in cancer patients and found that the frequency of Covid in cancer patients is high and the case fatality rate is 7.6 times more than the national average.