SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia: The Italian Hematology Alliance on COVID‐19 cohort

COVID‐19, the disease caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, is still afflicting thousands of people across the globe. Few studies on COVID‐19 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) are available. Here, we analyzed data from the CLL cohort of the Italian Hematology Alliance on COVID‐19 (NCT04352556), which included 256 CLL patients enrolled between 25 February 2020 and 1 February 2021. Median age was 70 years (range 38–94) with male preponderance (60.1%). Approximately half of patients (n = 127) had received at least one line of therapy for CLL, including 108 (83.7%) who were on active treatment at the time of COVID‐19 or received their last therapy within 12 months. Most patients (230/256, 89.9%) were symptomatic at COVID‐19 diagnosis and the majority required hospitalization (n = 176). Overall, after a median follow‐up of 42 days (IQR 24–96), case fatality rate was 30.1%, and it was 37.5% and 24.4% in the first (25 February 2020–22 June 2020) and second wave (23 June 2020–1 February 2021), respectively (p = 0.03). At multivariate analysis, male sex (HR 1.82, 95% CI 1.03–3.24, p = 0.04), age over than 70 years (HR 2.23, 95% CI 1.23–4.05, p = 0.01), any treatment for CLL given in the last 12 months (HR 1.72, 95% CI 1.04–2.84, p = 0.04) and COVID‐19 severity (severe: HR 5.66, 95% CI 2.62–12.33, p