Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports

Editorial Volume 2 Issue 1

Unprecedented Challenges Need Unprecedented Solutions for Cancer Care

Md Abu Bashar1 and Nazia Begam2*

1Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India
2Specialist Medical Officer(ENT), ECHS Hospital, Ambala, Haryana, India

*Corresponding Author: Dr Md Abu Bashar, Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, India..

Received: November 19, 2020; Published: November 28, 2020

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  Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), resulting in COVID-19, is posing an insurmountable challenge to healthcare systems globally. Cancer therapy is complex, regimented, and outcomes are focused on timing. COVID-19 has thrown a gauntlet to an already strained system for cancer treatment. Given the extrinsic factors (e.g. resource constraints and high morbidity/mortality) of the COVID-19 pandemic and the intrinsic factors of patients with cancer (e.g. high-risk population, lower immune system, and many at advanced stage of disease), practitioners face great responsibilities in ensuring timely, appropriate, compassionate, and justified cancer care, while protecting themselves from becoming infected with COVID-19 [1]. The reported prevalence of cancer among patients with COVID-19 i.e. around 1% seems to be higher than its prevalence in the overall population [2]. Early data from two small, heterogeneous populations [3] showed that 39-54% of patients with cancer were reported to have a severe event (admission to intensive care unit, or death) when infected with COVID-19 [2,4]. Receiving antitumor chemo-or immuno-therapy or surgery within 2-4 weeks of developing symptoms of COVID-19 predicted worse outcomes [2,4]. The challenges imposed by COVID-19 impact every aspect of the existing paradigm of cancer care, starting with diagnosis all the way to end-of-life care for cancer patients, which raises concerns about patients receiving suboptimal care.

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Citation

Citation: Md Abu Bashar and Nazia Begam. “Unprecedented Challenges Need Unprecedented Solutions for Cancer Care" Acta Scientific Clinical Case Reports 2.1 (2021): 01.




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