Safeguarding COVID-19 and cancer management: drug design and therapeutic approach

Nanasaheb Thorat; Sabrina Pricl; Abdul K Parchur; Sandeep B Somvanshi; Qifei Li; Sachin Umrao; Helen Townley

doi:10.12688/openreseurope.13841.1

Safeguarding COVID-19 and cancer management: drug design and therapeutic approach

Open Res Eur. 2021 Jul 5:1:77. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.13841.1. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Nanasaheb Thorat¹, Sabrina Pricl^{2

3}, Abdul K Parchur⁴, Sandeep B Somvanshi⁵, Qifei Li⁶, Sachin Umrao⁷, Helen Townley^{1

8}

Affiliations

¹ Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.
² MolBNL@UniTS-DEA, University of Trieste, Piazzale Europa 1, Trieste, 34127, Italy.
³ Department of General Biophysics, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Lodz, Lodz, 90-136, Poland.
⁴ Radiation Oncology, Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of Wisconsin, Medical College of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, USA.
⁵ School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Stadium Avenue, West Lafayette, USA.
⁶ Division of Newborn Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
⁷ Department of Therapeutic Radiology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, USA.
⁸ Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.

Abstract

Recent clinical cohort studies have highlighted that there is a three-fold greater SARS-Cov-2 infection risk in cancer patients, and overall mortality in individuals with tumours is increased by 41% with respect to general COVID-19 patients. Thus, access to therapeutics and intensive care is compromised for people with both diseases (comorbidity) and there is risk of delayed access to diagnosis. This comorbidity has resulted in extensive burden on the treatment of patients and health care system across the globe; moreover, mortality of hospitalized patients with comorbidity is reported to be 30% higher than for individuals affected by either disease. In this data-driven review, we aim specifically to address drug discoveries and clinical data of cancer management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review will extensively address the treatment of COVID-19/cancer comorbidity; treatment protocols and new drug discoveries, including the description of drugs currently available in clinical settings; demographic features; and COVID-19 outcomes in cancer patients worldwide.

Keywords: Cancer; Covid 19; anticancer drugs; antiviral therapies.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 840964. This article is based upon work from COST Action CA 17140 "Cancer Nanomedicine from the Bench to the Bedside" supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).