COVID-19

Vaccination with the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna) appears safe in patients with solid tumors receiving immunotherapy, chemotherapy, or chemoimmunotherapy.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruptions to virtually all aspects of oncology care. There has been a steep drop in cancer diagnoses and screenings—a result of shelter-in-place policies instituted early on, as well as ongoing patient fears about returning to healthcare facilities for new appointments or follow-up care. Experts predict that there will soon be a surge of patients with advanced cancer, which has the potential to overwhelm a healthcare infrastructure already stretched very thin. There are also unanswered questions regarding the role of telemedicine moving forward, as well as the use of alternate sites of care. These issues were addressed by a panel of healthcare experts during the virtual National Comprehensive Cancer Network 2021 Annual Conference.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on healthcare, especially in the management of patients with cancer, who are often not seeking healthcare in the same way as before the pandemic. At the 2021 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) meeting, experts discussed the implications for patients with lung cancer, specifically.

A survey of patients with lung cancer conducted as COVID-19 pandemic shelter-in-place lockdowns were first easing in June 2020 in the United States revealed substantial anxieties about vulnerability to severe illness and access to care.

The first confirmed case in the United States of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was reported on January 21, 2020, and as of November 27, 2020, there were >63 million confirmed cases and >1.5 million deaths globally. Despite the global impact, certain populations have been identified as having a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection, including patients with cancer. Various studies have shown that patients with cancer experience particularly poor outcomes after COVID-19 infection. As a result of the pandemic, care delivery has been disrupted to some degree based on the need for prioritization and limitations on resources. Therefore, healthcare providers and patients have been continually reassessing the balance between the benefits and risks of anticancer interventions in the context of the added risk of COVID-19 infection.

At the July 2020 AACR virtual meeting on COVID-19 and cancer, Solange Peters, MD, PhD, European Society for Medical Oncology President, and Head, Medical Oncology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland, delivered the keynote address, providing an update on the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium cohort study.

Nationally renowned oncologist Maurie Markman, MD, President of Medicine and Science at Cancer Treatment Centers of America, led a panel of experts in discussing how existing anticancer agents, such as kinase inhibitors and the corticosteroid dexamethasone, may be used for the treatment of patients with COVID-19 in a July webinar of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) on COVID-19.

“COVID-19 has been like a 9/11 moment in healthcare,” said Michael Kolodziej, MD, Senior Advisor, ADVI Health, at the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) July 28, 2020, webcast. “We don’t have a playbook. It’s required us to rethink.”

Since March 2020, Cancer Support Community has broken records for the number of calls coming into its national network, said Elizabeth Franklin, LGSW, ACSW, Executive Director of the Cancer Policy Institute and Co-Chair of the Policy and Advocacy Committee of the Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+), in a webinar of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) on COVID-19.

With new cancer diagnoses down by 37% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and data from IQVIA showing that 22 million people postponed cancer screening tests and 80,000 patients delayed or missed diagnoses, America’s comprehensive cancer centers and integrated delivery networks (IDNs) are anticipating a major “shadow curve” in new cancer cases in the months and year to come.