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. 2021 Apr;124(9):1513-1515.
doi: 10.1038/s41416-021-01263-7. Epub 2021 Feb 8.

Urological cancer patients receiving treatment during COVID-19: a single-centre perspective

Sophie Therese Williams #  1 , Salma El Badri #  2 , Syed Anwer Hussain  3
Affiliations

Urological cancer patients receiving treatment during COVID-19: a single-centre perspective

Sophie Therese Williams et al. Br J Cancer. 2021 Apr.

Erratum in

  • Publisher Correction.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] Br J Cancer. 2021 Oct;125(8):1177. doi: 10.1038/s41416-021-01520-9. Br J Cancer. 2021. PMID: 34417578 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Background: Active cancer, immunosuppressive treatments and immunotherapies have been reported to increase cancer patients' risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection. For patients and clinicians, treatment risk must be weighed against disease progression.

Methods: This retrospective case series surveys urological cancer patients who made informed decisions to continue anticancer treatment (ACT) at one centre from March to June 2020.

Results: Sixty-one patients (44 bladder, 10 prostate, 7 upper urinary tract cancers) received 195 cycles of ACT (99 chemotherapy, 59 immunotherapy, 37 as part of ongoing clinical trials), with a range of indications: 43 palliative, 10 neoadjuvant, 8 adjuvant. One patient tested positive for COVID-19 but experienced only mild symptoms. Fourteen patients interrupted treatment outside of their schedule, seven of these due to potential COVID-19 associated risk. ACT supportive steroids were not associated with higher rates of COVID-19.

Conclusions: This single-centre series reports that ACT administration did not result in an apparent excess in symptomatic COVID-19 infections.

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Conflict of interest statement

S.T.W. has no conflicts of interest to declare. S.E.B. has no conflicts of interest to declare. S.A.H. has been paid to lecture by Roche, MSD, AstraZeneca, BMS, Sotio, Janssen, Pierre Fabre, Ipsen, Pfizer. S.A.H. has received payment for advisory boards and consultancy from Roche, MSD, Astra Zeneca, Astellas, BMS, Pierre Fabre, Janssen, Pfizer, Bayer, GSK, Eisai.

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