When it comes to the risk from COVID-19, not all cancers are equal, according to findings from a UK cohort study showing patients with haematological cancers are particularly vulnerable.

Data for 1044 people with active cancer who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus between March and May across 61 centres in the UK Coronavirus Cancer Monitoring Project were compared with control population data on people with cancer from 2017.

Some 31% of the people with COVID-19 and cancer (mean age 70 years, 57% male) died during the nine-week study period, with 93% dying because of the coronavirus infection, the researchers reported in Lancet Oncology.

“Patients with haematological malignancies (leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma) had a more severe COVID-19 trajectory compared with patients with solid organ tumours,” they wrote.