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Review
. 2021 Jun;52(2):407-413.
doi: 10.1007/s12029-020-00557-y. Epub 2020 Nov 26.

Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Management in the COVID-19 Era: Risk of Infection, Adapted Role of Endoscopy, and Potential Treatment Algorithm Alterations

Konstantinos Apostolou  1 , Stamatina Vogli  2 , Maximos Frountzas  3 , Athanasios Syllaios  2 , Maria Tolia  4 , Ioannis S Papanikolaou  5 , Dimitrios Schizas  2
Affiliations
Review

Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Management in the COVID-19 Era: Risk of Infection, Adapted Role of Endoscopy, and Potential Treatment Algorithm Alterations

Konstantinos Apostolou et al. J Gastrointest Cancer. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Introduction: The safety of upper gastrointestinal cancer patients in the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak is extremely important and most surgeons need to establish a contingency management.

Aim: In this study, we present the surgical outlines of patients suffering from upper gastrointestinal cancers.

Materials and methods: Data were obtained from PubMed, Cochrane Database of Controlled Trials, and SCOPUS of reports up to September 2020.

Results: The COVID-19 outbreak makes surgical procedures extremely difficult to be performed. The most common criteria to prioritize patients for surgical treatment are stage, tumor biology, presence of tumor-related symptoms, the risk of tumor to become non-resectable, and time interval from neoadjuvant therapy. The multidisciplinary teams can help assigning a priority level to each clinical case.

Conclusion: We have to continue providing treatment to oncologic patients in the face of COVID-19 uncertainty, with higher caution and responsibility in order to develop a safer and more effective personalized treatment plan.

Keywords: COVID-19; Pandemic; Surgery; Upper gastrointestinal cancers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The studies that clearly did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded. We used papers only in the English language
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
It would be useful to see all the improvements in telemedicine, patients’ risk stratification, and triage as well as the adoption of hub-and-spoke programs to be implemented in contemporary healthcare systems
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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