Clinical Characteristics and Laboratory Findings in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-2019) Infected Cancer Patients and Chemotherapeutic Medicines against COVID-19

• Main Author: Nikolaos Chrysanthakopoulos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Emergency Department of Hospital San Pedro (Logroño, Spain) 2020-09-01
• Series: Iberoamerican Journal of Medicine
• Subjects: infection; coronavirus; covid-19; cancer; patients
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4038819

In December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares that a severe pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was emerged and was spread rapidly resulted in dramatic global economic and health implications. The novel coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for a severe inflammatory reaction and clinically severe complications, although the majority of the infected individuals had mild symptoms and favorable prognosis after recovery. However, cancer patients are a high-risk group as are already susceptible to COVID-19 infection due to their underlying disease and their immunosuppression. Moreover, cancer patients are at increased risk of developing clinically severe complications in case of COVID-19 infection such as, Intensive Care Unit admission, required mechanical ventilation or even death. Another aggravating factor for oncological patients, during that pandemic crisis is the risk of postponing cancer treatment. The present review presents the clinical characteristics accompanied by the corresponding laboratory findings in COVID-19 infected cancer patients and the possible therapeutic role of some known chemo-therapeutic agents based on the recent observations of the International literature.