Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. Nov 25, 2021; 10(6): 329-331
Published online Nov 25, 2021. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v10.i6.329
Effects of COVID-19 in lymphoid malignancies
Öner Özdemir
Öner Özdemir, Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Sakarya University Medical Faculty, Adapazarı 54100, Sakarya, Turkey
Author contributions: Öner Özdemir did all the work.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Öner Özdemir, MD, Professor, Division of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, Sakarya University Medical Faculty, Adnan Menderes Cad., Adapazarı 54100, Sakarya, Turkey. ozdemir_oner@hotmail.com
Received: June 16, 2021
Peer-review started: June 16, 2021
First decision: July 31, 2021
Revised: August 4, 2021
Accepted: November 14, 2021
Article in press: November 14, 2021
Published online: November 25, 2021
Processing time: 159 Days and 2.5 Hours
Abstract

I will have a couple of comments on the issues elaborated in the article titled as ‘Impact of COVID-19 in patients with lymphoid malignancies’. First, the author did not emphasize and overlook the prolonged persistence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with hematological malignancies. Second, the rise of a chronic lymphoid leukemia clone in COVID-19 was not mentioned by the authors. Third, achieving a complete remission in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients with follicular lymphoma in partial remission after bendamustine-based therapy is not specific to this lymphoma subtype. Fourth, follicular lymphoma does not always undergo complete remission with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Our aim is to help the authors to discuss and clarify these issues a little more in COVID-19 patients with hematological malignancies.

Keywords: COVID-19; Tumor; SARS-CoV-2; Lymphoid malignancy

Core Tip: I have several comments on the article titled as ‘Impact of COVID-19 in patients with lymphoid malignancies’. The author did not emphasize a couple of issues related to the effects of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection in various lymphoid malignancies. This letter helps to clarify these issues more in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with hematological malignancies.