Should patients stop their radiotherapy or chemotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Bin Huang; Jian Zhu; Xiong-Ying Wu; Xu-Hui Gao

Should patients stop their radiotherapy or chemotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Am J Cancer Res. 2020 May 1;10(5):1518-1521. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Bin Huang^{1

2}, Jian Zhu², Xiong-Ying Wu³, Xu-Hui Gao²

Affiliations

¹ The First School of Clinical Medicine, Southern Medical University Guangzhou 510515, China.
² Department of Thoracic Cardiovascular Surgery, General Hospital of Central Theater Command of The People's Liberation Army Wuhan, China.
³ Department of Laryngology and Otology, General Hospital of Central Theater Command of The People's Liberation Army Wuhan, China.

PMID: 32509394
PMCID: PMC7269792

Abstract

In the previous stage, there were too many patients with Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan. Ordinary people, patients, even doctors, had a great sense of desperate. On the one hand, almost all doctors participated in the treatment of patients of COVID-19. On the other hand, the government restricted residents to go out, and the sick people were also afraid of being infected with COVID-19 when seeking medical treatment. Whether cancer patients seek medical treatment or not has become a contradiction for a long time. Our Viewpoint paper is to provide a positive signal to doctors and patients that patients with in the middle or advanced stage of cancer can receive radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy normally under protective measures.

Keywords: COVID-19; Radiotherapy; chemotherapy.