In a recent case report, a team of physicians described an immunosuppressed patient with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who was contagious for more than 2 months. Infectious virus was present in the patient’s endotracheal aspirate (ETA) 72 days after his COVID-19 diagnosis and 2 days before he died from the massive lung infection. The findings from the 73-year-old man, who had recently undergone chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy, suggest that patients with COVID-19 who are severely immunosuppressed may need isolation for longer than the currently recommended 20 days.
The patient with treatment–resistant multiple myeloma was first admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) for COVID-19 symptoms 25 days after a CAR-T–cell infusion, which was preceded by lymphodepletion. As a result, the patient had a diminished T-cell response and an almost nonexistent antibody response.