COVID-19 and cancer research

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on human lives and society. The accompanying editorial summarises some of the major effects on cancer patients and impacts on cancer research.

COVID-19 has had a major impact on everything we do, but in this editorial, I will consider the cancer field. Cancer patients are at the forefront of risk from COVID-19 and have a disproportionately high death rate. Clearly, some of these factors relate to immune suppression and chemotherapy, which means the relative risks of treatment versus death from coronavirus versus infection need to be carefully balanced. Also, the need for isolation of patients and delivery of treatment is a problem, particularly intravenous and intramuscular injections. This has led to prioritisation lists, ranking from the most curable, to those least likely to benefit. No trial therapies can be used, as all trials are stopped for cancer therapy. Highly innovative clinical trials of advanced cellular therapies, such as tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and chimaeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, will be particularly adversely affected as these also often require input from critical care/intensive therapy unit (ITU). There will also be consequences on survival for those patients treated with curative intent for whom critical care is often required to deliver their treatment (e.g., major thoracic surgery or oesophagectomy and bone marrow transplantation in haemato-oncology), and which has been delayed due to de-prioritisation as ITU has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Credit: https-www-nature-com-articles-s41416-020-0960-1