Rare and unusual cancers linked to Covid
During the pandemic and now, thirteen months after it was declared over, the emergence of various and complex diseases, some related to the vaccine and others related to the virus itself, has become apparent. Doctors in the United States are reporting rare and unusual cases of cancer in patients who are mostly young and without a family history of the disease, and are wondering whether Covid-19 has anything to do with it.
They watch these patients suffer from darker forms of the disease, which usually affects people over 70 or 80 years of age. Including cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and deadly bile duct cancer.
Experts say there are other elements going on that are drawing attention, such as patients suffering from multiple types of cancer at the same time. The pandemic has forced people to isolate themselves and postpone regular checkups for fear of getting infected. And even to avoid any adverse health effects in the face of other problems and emergencies.
But doctors don’t think it’s a major factor in rare and advanced cases of cancer. Instead, the thought that Covid-19 will leave a mark on the lives of many people begins to pop into their minds.
Every Friday, the oncology team from the Carolina Cancer and Blood Association met for lunch and entertainment. Kashyap Patel, its chief executive, commented that at one of these meetings he told his colleagues about the case of a 40-year-old young man with cholangiocarcinoma. A year later, that number had risen to seven young cancer patients, three of whom had died.
“I’ve been in this profession for 23 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Patel recalled as Asutosh Gore, another oncologist at the hospital, nodded. “We were all touched.”
Was Covid a trigger for cancer cases?
There are numerous papers and studies that warned at the time that cancer patients were at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 at its most serious stage. Especially due to the weakened immune system of these patients. But that’s not true.
Patel is concerned about the possibility that Covid-19 caused or planted the seeds of this disease and gave rise to complex and rare types of tumors. In an article for American Journal of Managed Care He noted that both in the United States and those he knows abroad, he has seen patients with various types of cancer that progress rapidly, such as breast cancer and renal cell carcinoma. He said some did not even receive treatment and died within weeks of diagnosis.
He cited a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found that the annual number of cancer deaths increased 4.7% from 2018 to 2021, following a long period of declining cancer deaths. Researchers have found a disproportionate increase in deaths from cancer, the main cause of which is Covid-19, with higher rates among men.
The increase in aggressive late-stage cancers since the start of the pandemic is supported by some initial national data and a number of large cancer institutions, he said. Washington Post. Many experts have ruled out that these detections are a consequence of disruptions in medical care that began in 2020.
Rare and unusual cancers
The idea that some viruses can cause or accelerate cancer is not new. Scientists have recognized this possibility since the 1960s, and they now estimate that 15 to 20% of all cancers worldwide are due to infectious agents such as HPV, Epstein-Barr virus, and hepatitis B.
John T. Schiller, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, said pathogens that cause cancer persist in the body for a long time. But a class of respiratory viruses that includes influenza and RSV (the family that includes coronaviruses) infects a patient and then disappears rather than persisting and is not thought to cause cancer. “You can never say never, but this type of virus does not suggest that it is involved in cancer,” he said.
David Porken, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center and former president of the American Association for Cancer Research, said there is no evidence that the coronavirus directly transforms cells to become cancerous. But that may not be the whole story.
Asin noted that a number of studies show that coronavirus infection can trigger an inflammatory cascade and other reactions that could theoretically worsen the growth of cancer cells.
“Covid-19 wreaks havoc on the body, and that’s where cancer can start,” Thieneson said. And he explained how autopsies of people who died from Covid-19 showed premature tissue aging.
The Miami Baptist Health Cancer Institute, the University of California, San Diego, and other major institutions have published data showing a continued increase in late-stage disease.
SARS-CoV-2 multiplies cancer cells
Xuesong Han, scientific director of health research at the American Cancer Society, attributed the increase to people postponing appointments. Or they missed the spotlight due to concerns about the virus, or economic reasons, or cultural factors. But Khan acknowledged that the biological mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, may have a role.
“I don’t have data to support that view,” Khan said, “but it’s an important issue that needs to be looked at.”
About a year ago, Afshin Beheshti, a visiting scientist at MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute, contacted Patel, the former president of the Alliance for Community Oncology. They organized a symposium with other scientists and it was concluded that there is strong evidence of a link between coronavirus and cancer.
“I hope we’re wrong,” Beheshti said. “But, unfortunately, everything is pushing towards this.”
Wallace, a scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, is considered the father of the field of human mitochondrial genetics, which studies the energy plants that fuel human cells, explores how Covid-19 affects energy production in cells and how this may affect vulnerability to cancer.
In addition, biodata experts are sequencing the genetic profiles of organs of people who have died from Covid-19 and undergone postmortem examination.
And a team from the University of Colorado is studying whether Covid-19 awakens cancer cells. Their preliminary results showed that when cancer-surviving mice were infected with SARS-CoV-2, dormant cancer cells proliferated in the lungs.
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