Coronavirus means difficult, life-changing decisions for me and my cancer patients
How do we choose between under-treating vulnerable cancer patients and potentially exposing them to Covid-19?
The way we treat cancer over the next few months will change enormously. As oncologists, we will have to find a tenuous balance between under-treating people with cancer, resulting in more deaths from the disease in the medium to long term, and increasing deaths from Covid-19 in a vulnerable patient population. Alongside our patients we will have to make difficult decisions regarding treatments, with only low-quality evidence to guide us.
The evidence suggests that people with cancer have a significantly higher risk of severe illness resulting in intensive care admissions or death when infected with Covid-19, particularly if they have recently had chemotherapy or surgery. Many of the oncology treatments we currently use, especially those given after surgery to reduce risk of cancer recurrence, have relatively small benefits.
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