Our study provides a unique insight in the decision making in the setting of COVID-19 outbreak. A treatment strategy modification after COVID-19 outbreak was made for 32 % of patients. Treatment modifications were in accordance with guidelines for 92 % of patients. Most dose modifications were related to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Patients with thoracic cancers have been reported at higher risk to develop severe disease, and die from COVID-19. In this setting, clinical practice recommendations for the management of patients were published. We report here how these guidelines were implemented in a routine practice setting. We retrospectively collected the characteristics, treatment regimen and modification, as well as COVID-19 status and death for all patients with thoracic malignancies scheduled for an appointment at Institute Curie from March 23rd to April 17th 2020.
A total of 5 (1.5 %) patients were diagnosed with COVID-19 disease, 1 of whom died from disease complication. Our study provides a unique insight in the decision making for patients with thoracic malignancies in the setting of COVID-19 outbreak, showing how guidelines were implemented in the clinic, and what may be optimized in the clinical practice of thoracic oncology in the future.
Reference link- https://www.lungcancerjournal.info/article/S0169-5002(21)00186-0/fulltext
