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The presented literature review presents studies, including our own, on the characteristics of the course of coronavirus infection in patients with acute myeloid leukemia in the older age group. Patients with acute leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome are often over 65 years of age and have a burdened comorbid background and have profound immunodeficiency due to the underlying disease and the antitumor treatment received, and delaying treatment is often impossible due to the urgent need to start antitumor therapy. Management of this cohort of patients with concomitant COVID-19 is a challenge for hematologists around the world and requires interdisciplinary collaboration between hematologists and infectious disease specialists, clinical pharmacologists. There is a need to develop criteria to determine clear indications for starting antitumor treatment against the background of COVID-19 and the optimal timing for resuming the next course of chemotherapy after a coronavirus infection. The analysis of the literature and our own experience showed high hospital mortality taking into account the state of deep immunodeficiency of patients, despite the treatment of COVID-19, secondary bacterial and fungal infections and demonstrated the need to develop, first of all, preventive strategies in elderly patients with acute leukemia.
Szymanovskaya et al. (Mon,) studied this question.