Patients with Cancer Appear More Vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2: A Multicenter Study during the COVID-19 Outbreak.

The novel COVID-19 outbreak has affected more than 200 countries and territories as of March 2020. Given that patients with cancer are generally more vulnerable to infections, systematic analysis of diverse cohorts of patients with cancer affected by COVID-19 is needed. We performed a multicenter study including 105 patients with cancer and 536 age-matched noncancer patients confirmed with COVID-19. Our results showed COVID-19 patients with cancer had higher risks in all severe outcomes. Patients with hematologic cancer, lung cancer, or with metastatic cancer (stage IV) had the highest frequency of severe events. Patients with nonmetastatic cancer experienced similar frequencies of severe conditions to those observed in patients without cancer. Patients who received surgery had higher risks of having severe events, whereas patients who underwent only radiotherapy did not demonstrate significant differences in severe events when compared with patients without cancer. These findings indicate that patients with cancer appear more vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. SIGNIFICANCE: Because this is the first large cohort study on this topic, our report will provide much-needed information that will benefit patients with cancer globally. As such, we believe it is extremely important that our study be disseminated widely to alert clinicians and patients.This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 747.

MiR-142 inhibits the development of cervical cancer by targeting HMGB1.

It has been reported that miRNAs is deregulated in diverse human cancers, involving human cervical cancer. However, the clinical significances and potential mechanisms of miR-142 in the development and progression of cervical cancer were not elucidated completely till now. In this study, we found that the expression of miR- 142 was obviously down-regulated in human cervical cancer tissues and a panel of cell lines. According to statistics, the expression of miR-142 was negatively related to advanced FIGO stage and lymphatic metastasis (p < 0.001). Furthermore, our functional analysis revealed the overexpression of miR-142 affected cell proliferation and invasiveness, and enhanced cell apoptosis in representative SiHa and HeLa cells. Based on the molecular level, our findings showed the 3' untranslated region (3'-UTR) of high-mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) was a direct target of miR-142, and determined an inverse correlation with the expression of miR-142. Ectopic expression of HMGB1 could attenuate the inhibitory impact of miR-142 on the proliferation and invasiveness of cervical cancer cells. In conclusion, the present work suggested that miR-142 affects cervical cancer cell proliferation and invasiveness, and enhances cell apoptosis via directly targeting the expression of HMGB1, and these findings may lay a novel foundation for the promising therapy target of cervical cancer.