AUTHOR=Al-Mozaini Maha , Noman Abu Shadat M. , Alotaibi Jawaher , Karim Mohammed Rezaul , Zahed A. S. M. , Karim A. T. M. Rezaul , Alromiah Khaldoun , Islam Syed S. TITLE=SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load Is Correlated With the Disease Severity and Mortality in Patients With Cancer JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology VOLUME=11 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2021.715794 DOI=10.3389/fonc.2021.715794 ISSN=2234-943X ABSTRACT=
The correlation between severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral load and risk of disease severity in cancer patients is poorly understood. Given the fact that cancer patients are at increased risk of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), analysis of viral load and disease outcome in COVID-19-infected cancer patients is needed. Here, we measured the SARS-CoV-2 viral load using qPCR cycle threshold (Ct) values collected from 120 noncancer and 64 cancer patients’ nasopharyngeal swab samples who are admitted to hospitals. Our results showed that the in-hospital mortality for high viral load cancer patients was 41.38%, 23.81% for medium viral load and 14.29% for low viral load patients (