Bora Uysal*, Hakan Gamsız, Ferrat Dincoglan, Omer Sager, Selcuk Demiral and Murat Beyzadeoglu
Department of Radiation Oncology, Turkey
*Corresponding author: Bora Uysal, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Health Sciences, Gulhane Medical Faculty, Turkey
Submission: April 15, 2020Published: July 06, 2020
ISSN:2637-773XVolume5 Issue1
Management of cancer with radiotherapy during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic is a novel and risky situation because of the higher mortality rates of COVID19 infection in immune compromised patients. To receive or to delay radiotherapy is a challenging topic with different scenarios. We reviewed updated literature and share some recommendations to the problems that every department of Radiation Oncology might face worldwide.
Coronaviruses are one of the human and animal pathogens. A new coronavirus type was identified after pneumonia cases in Wuhan which is a city of China at the last month of 2019. This novel type of coronavirus resulted an epidemic throughout China and increasing number of cases in other countries worldwide [1]. In February 2020, the WHO (World Health Organization) announced the disease COVID-19 that representing coronavirus disease 2019. Severe acute respiratory syndrome that required intensive care is the possible complication of COVID-19 and can be fatal.
The WHO made a statement about the COVID-19 and initiated to characterize this disease as a pandemic to emphasize the important situation and warn the countries to act for detecting infection and preventing spread. Protection of health workers, older adults and those people with comorbid diseases were the highest priorities of the WHO. More than 1-meter social distancing, to wash hands with soap and water not less than 20 seconds and staying home as much as possible were the first basic recommendations in order to slow disease spread [2]. Incubation period of Covid-19 changes between 5 to 15 days [3]. Novel data about Covid-19 are 1 934 125 cases, 12 437 death and 456 599 recovered people at 14th April of 2020 according to the global media. 61 049 cases, 1296 death and 3957 recovered people were seen in Turkey with 410 556 total test number at the same day.
There were 17 million new cases of cancer worldwide in 2018. Four most common cancer occurring worldwide are lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancer. There will be 27 million new cases of cancer each year by 2040. There were 9.6 million death from cancer worldwide in 2018. Lung, liver, stomach and bowel are the most common causes of cancer death. Radiotherapy is one of the irreplaceable and corner stone treatment modalities for the cancer treatment. Problematic issue with Covid-19 pandemia was how to maintain the radiotherapy department activity with protecting firstly cancer patients, families and healthcare providers including radiation oncologists, physicists, radiotherapy technicians, nurses and other healthcare givers with whole department workers.
There are 7 problems needed to be given high importance for the cancer patients and the radiotherapy staff associated with radiation treatment.
Too bey all the rules and recommendations will keep the cancer patients and health care givers to get infected with novel coronavirus. Do not forget the cancer patients are possibly immune supressed and have a tendency to all infectious diseases.
© 2020. Bora Uysal. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.