Age, Gender, and Liver Enzyme Impact Hospital Stay in COVID-19 Minority Patient with Cancer in the USA: Does Race Matters in the Pandemic?

Patients with cancer are known to have a poor prognosis when infected with SARS-CoV-2 infection. We aimed in this study to assess health outcomes in COVID-19 patients with different cancers in comparison to non-cancer COVID-19 patients from different centers in the United States (US). We evaluated medical records of 1,943 COVID-19 Cancer patients from 3 hospitals admitted between December 2019 to October 2021 and compared them with non-cancer COVID-19 patients. Among 1,943 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, 18.7% (n=364) have an active or previous history of cancer. Among these 364 cancer patients, 222 were African Americans (61.7%) and 121 were Caucasians (33.2%). Cancer patients had significantly longer hospitalization compared to controls (8.24 vs 6.7 days). Overall, Lung cancer is associated with high mortality. Patients with a previous history of cancer were more prone to death (p=0.04) than active cancer patients. In univariate and multivariate analyses, predictors of death among cancer patients were male sex, older age, presence of dyspnea, elevated troponin, elevated AST (0.001) and ALT (0.05), low albumin (p=0.04) and mechanical ventilation (p=0.001). Patients with a previous history of cancer were more prone to death when compared to active cancer COVID-19 patients. Early recognition of cancer COVID-19 patients' death-associated risk factors can help determine appropriate treatment and management plans for better prognosis and outcome.

In vivo modulation of murine myelopoiesis following intravenous administration of prostaglandin E2

The effects of in vivo administration of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) on several hematologic parameters were investigated in intact mice under both steady-state conditions and in mice hematopoietically rebounding following a sublethal injection of cyclophosphamide. Intravenous injection of native PGE2, or 16,16 dimethyl-PGE2, an enzymatically stable analog of PGE2, resulted in the significant suppression of nucleated bone marrow and splenic cellularity, total resident nucleated peritoneal cells, and the absolute number of detectable granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells (CFU-GM) per femur or spleen when administered for 3 or 7 consecutive days. The in vivo effects of 16,16 dimethyl-PGE2 were more pronounced on the cyclophosphamide-treated mice. Dose titration analysis of the effects of 16,16 dimethyl-PGE2 revealed significant suppression of hematologic parameters over a concentration range of 10 micrograms-10(-5) micrograms/mouse/day (10(-5) M-10(-11) M). The reduction in total nucleated marrow, splenic, and peritoneal cellularity observed following PGE2 administration resulted from a selective effect on nonspecific esterase-positive cells. In situ morphological analysis of the progeny of CFU-GM proliferating in cultures established from mice treated with PGE2 in vivo indicated that the reduction in absolute CFU-GM observed resulted from a preferential effect on those colony-forming cells restricted to monocyte-macrophage differentiation. Prostaglandin F2 alpha was without stimulatory or inhibitory effects in vivo on the hematopoietic parameters investigated.