New research has begun on what US doctors are calling an “unusual pattern” of rare and deadly cancers that have recently started popping up and could be connected to the COVID-19 virus.
According to a report from the Washington Post, a group of medical experts have come together to study the phenomenon and share data after concluding that there was compelling enough evidence to warrant further research.
Among those participating in the research is Kashyap Patel, an oncologist in South Carolina and CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates.
Patel says that the uptick in cases he’s witnessed shows there needs to be a national registry to analyze trends.
“I’ve been in practice 23 years and have never seen anything like this,” Patel said, adding that he’s already collected data from dozens of his own patients that show a potential link between long COVID and unusual cancers.
Dr. Peter Chin Hong, a professor of medicine and infectious disease expert at UCSF School of Medicine, who is not involved in the research directly, shared with Audacy that the trend is cause for concern, but more research needs to be completed.
Hong says that the rare cancers, which have started to appear particularly in young people, could be caused by the virus, as “there is a biological plausibility why infections may lead to cancer.”
“Usually the infections we think about that lead to cancer, human papillomavirus, or HPV, Barr virus, and hepatitis B, they kind of hide out in the body for a while and lead to some dysregulation that eventually arises in cancer,” Hong says. “There is some evidence that COVID can persist, particularly in those with long COVID. So there’s a little bit of plausibility but not a ton of data yet.”
Hong also says that the researchers will look to see if there is a connection between COVID-19’s effect on a person’s immune system and how it could make them more susceptible to cancer.
“With COVID, we know that the immune system can be dysregulated with people who got severe COVID, and we know that the immune system is also really super important for cancer because it not only sops up infection, it sort of moderates the risk for getting cancer by attacking misshapen and nonfunctional cells,” he said.
While there still is no definitive study that shows COVID has contributed to a spike in cancer cases, researchers will work to compile the data necessary to answer their hypothesis.
“Hopefully, we’re wrong,” Afshin Beheshti, the president of the COVID-19 International Research Team, told the Post.“But everything is, unfortunately, pushing toward that being the case.”