Understanding the risk of covid for people with blood cancer
New treatments have been developed for people who are at high risk of covid. Professor Hippisley-Cox and her team want to understand more about these new treatments and how effective they are.
The challenge
People with blood cancer face unique challenges and risks from covid. New treatments have been developed for people who are at high risk of getting very sick from the virus, yet it remains unclear how often people in the UK are receiving these new treatments. It’s important to understand the benefits and risks of these treatments among different groups of people affected by the disease.
The project
Professor Hippisley-Cox and her team at the University of Oxford will use a large research database which contains information of over 100,000 people with blood cancer. They plan to use data to understand more about covid treatments for people with blood cancer. They hope to understand more about the people with blood cancer who have received covid treatments, how effective these treatments were in preventing severe covid, and more about any risks of negative side effects from these treatments.
The future
Understanding how effective and safe each available treatment is in different groups of people with blood cancer will help doctors make sure they are choosing the best possible treatment available for each individual patient, with the highest likelihood of preventing severe covid. They also hope this will allow them to develop ways to ensure all people with blood cancer have access to covid treatments in the future.