Infection rate and clinical management of cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic: experience from a tertiary care hospital in northern Italy

doi:10.1136/esmoopen-2020-000810

ESMO Open

Volume 5, Issue 3, 2020, e000810

https://doi.org/10.1136/esmoopen-2020-000810 Get rights and content

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open access

ABSTRACT

Background

Optimal management of patients with cancer during COVID-19 pandemic is still pending.

Methods

Our patients were advised to maintain their scheduled appointments, and planned cancer treatment was continued without unnecessary delays in an outpatient setting. Additional strict preventive infection measures were rapidly implemented at our outpatient department. When COVID-19 test became widely available, universal testing of healthcare workers and vigorous screening of all patients coming to our facility for COVID-19 infection were performed by SARS-CoV-2 real-time reverse transcription PCR on rhinopharyngeal swab.

Results

As of the data cut-off on 9 April 2020, a total of 156 oncology patients with a median age of 67 (range 26–86) years and 63 haematology patients (median age 69 years, range 23–89) were screened for COVID-19 during active cancer treatment. Prevalence (1.8%; 4/219) of COVID-19 in patients with cancer was significantly higher compared with a respective control group of asymptomatic counterparts (p=0.018). Outcomes of COVID-19 positive patients were good, with only one observed death due to progression of advanced metastatic disease.

Conclusion

Our data indicate that continuation of anticancer treatment in epidemic areas during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be safe and feasible, if adequate and strict preventive measures are vigorously and successfully carried out.

COVID-19

coronavirus

cancer

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Contributors: Study design: MM and DF. Data collection: SR, CP, EH, MA, MM. Statistical analysis: MM. Drafting of the manuscript: DF. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: DF, SR, MM.

Funding: This work was supported by the budget of the Südtiroler Sanitätsbetrieb.

Competing interests: DF declares travel, accommodation, expenses supported by Sanofi and Ipsen outside the submitted work. CP declares non-financial support from Innova outside the submitted work. EH declares travel, accommodation, expenses supported by Roche and received honoraria from Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca outside the submitted work. MM declares travel, accommodation, expenses supported by Ipsen and Celgene and received honoraria from Janssen outside the submitted work.

Patient consent for publication: Not required.

Ethics approval: The study was approved by the local Ethics Committee of the “Südtiroler Sanitätsbetrieb” (protocol number 35-2020) and was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Data availability statement: All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.