Myelosuppressive chemotherapy can cause major infectious problems in individuals with aggressive malignant hematologic diseases, which can worsen by an active COVID-19 infection. For a study, researchers sought to describe a case of a healthy elderly woman with refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who was effectively treated.

She also had a minor COVID-19 infection and a detectable viral load when her illness was discovered to be recurrent. The 2-dose COVID-19 vaccine recipient had antiviral therapy with remdesivir, and upper respiratory symptoms improved before the start of reinduction treatment with cytarabine/idarubicin. On the third day of chemotherapy, sotrovimab was administered after this. She had one bout of neutropenic fever throughout her hospital stay, but no additional infections were found, and she remained hemodynamically stable the whole time.

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 did not reactivate symptomatically. The patient gradually eliminated the virus after reaching biopsy-confirmed morphologic remission of AML and with neutrophil recovery, finally testing negative on a polymerase chain reaction test of the nasopharynx. This example emphasized the significance of contemplating prompt chemotherapy start-up in eligible patients with severe hematologic malignancies and concurrent SARS-CoV-2 infection, despite myelosuppressive side effects.

It illustrated how active COVID-19 infection is managed in the population of patients, as well as how SARS-CoV-2 virus load changes while receiving leukemia therapy.

Reference: karger.com/Article/FullText/525766

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