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Oncology News Australia
Oncology News Australia

Browsing: COVID-19 Pandemic

The latest news effecting cancer patients and oncology service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic

One in two cancer patients may develop long COVID

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News

More than one in two cancer patients at a US cancer centre experienced symptoms of long COVID-19 for more than six months after initial infection, according to a study published today in eLife. The findings are comparable to reported incidence of long COVID-19 in the general population but also show that women undergoing cancer treatment seem at higher risk than men. In the general population, reports of the prevalence of long COVID-19 – also known as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) – vary from 10% to 87%, with symptoms persisting beyond 30 days in patients who had severe initial…

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Building capacity in digital health and informatics as COVID years press on

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic

Health systems struggling to cope with the pandemic and budget and staff shortages have an opportunity to make service and operating improvements with health informatics and digital health applications. While pressure mounts to maintain “business as usual” operations, researchers from Flinders University, James Cook University and Hong Kong’s Tung Wah Colllege have highlighted the benefits of expanding health management’s use of these key areas to improve productivity and meet increasing resource challenges to provide safe, quality care. “These two rapidly growing disciplines are becoming increasingly important to the sustainability of health service provision, as was highlighted through the COVID-19 pandemic,”…

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Study finds that patients with cancer and a suppressed immune system are at high risk for severe COVID if treated with systemic drug therapies

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Immunotherapy, Latest News

Patients with cancer and a weakened immune system who are treated with immunotherapies tend to fare far worse from COVID-19 than those who haven’t received such therapies in the three months before their COVID diagnosis, show findings in a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and across the US, Canada, and Mexico. Researchers found worse outcomes in both the disease itself as well as the fierce immune response that sometimes accompanies it. The study, posted online today by the journal JAMA Oncology, also found that immunocompromised patients treated with drug agents other than immunotherapies had more severe COVID than untreated…

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Unvaccinated adult cancer patients with COVID seven times more likely to die from any cause than comparable patients without COVID infection

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Editor's Choice, Latest News

Unvaccinated adult cancer patients with COVID were found to be seven times more likely to die from any cause of death than unvaccinated adult cancer patients who were not infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a population study from the Regenstrief Institute. The researchers studied adult cancer patients, whose cancer was diagnosed in 2019 and 2020, in active treatment or in remission. The study was performed using data before COVID-19 vaccines were available on ancestral strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The researchers found that among unvaccinated individuals with a recent cancer diagnosis – older adults, individuals with two or more comorbid…

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Report reveals experiences of outpatient cancer care during COVID-19 pandemic

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Editor's Choice, Latest News

A report released today by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) provides new insights into people’s experiences in outpatient cancer clinics across the state of NSW. The report draws on the latest results of the Outpatient Cancer Clinics Survey, reflecting the experiences of more than 8,000 people who received care in 42 outpatient cancer facilities in NSW in November 2021. LISTEN TO EPISODE 3 WITH AINSLEY CAMPBELL AND MIKE FIELD “These results provide a rich source of information for health services that helps them continue to focus on improving experiences and outcomes of care,” said BHI Chief Executive Dr Diane…

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If you think scrapping COVID isolation periods will get us back to work and past the pandemic, think again

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By on Commentary, COVID-19 Pandemic

C Raina MacIntyre, UNSW Sydney; Brendan Crabb, Burnet Institute, and Nancy Baxter, The University of Melbourne COVID is an exceptional disease and was at its deadliest this year, causing more deaths in Australia between June and August 2022 than at any other time. There have been 288 deaths from influenza so far this year compared to more than 12,000 deaths from COVID. The number of deaths from COVID in Australia in the first nine months of 2022 is more than ten times the annual national road toll of just over 1,000 – but we are not rushing to remove seat…

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Adults with blood cancers respond to booster, not initial dose of COVID-19 vaccine

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Haematology, Latest News

Most patients in the study mounted immune responses after a booster dose, and no patient with antibody responses died from COVID-19. People with hematologic malignancies—or blood cancers including leukaemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma—have an impaired immune system due to their disease and its treatment, putting them at risk of severe COVID-19 infection and experiencing a reduced response to COVID-19 vaccination. In a recent study published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, less than half of patients with hematologic malignancies mounted detectable antibodies after initial COVID-19 vaccination, but 56% of “nonresponders” produced antibodies after receiving a booster dose. For…

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Cancer patients receiving immunotherapy: No evidence of increased risk for severe immune complication after COVID-19 vaccination

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Immunotherapy, Latest News

Does COVID-19 vaccination increase the risk of cancer patients undergoing therapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors to suffer a dangerous immune complication known as a “cytokine release syndrome”? A team of Heidelberg physicians and scientists has now shown in a clinical study: Increased serum levels of the characteristic cytokines occur frequently in cancer patients, but clinically relevant cases of the dreaded syndrome were not observed. The result supports the current recommendation to vaccinate cancer patients against COVID-19, even under therapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors. According to the German Robert Koch Institute, cancer patients are considered a risk group for severe courses…

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The Lancet Infectious Diseases: COVID-19 vaccines are estimated to have prevented 20 million deaths worldwide in the first year of the vaccine programme, modelling study finds

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News

COVID-19 vaccines reduced the potential global death toll during the pandemic by more than half in the year following their implementation, a mathematical modelling study published today in The Lancet Infectious Diseases estimates. In the first year of the vaccination programme, 19.8 million out of a potential 31.4 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented worldwide according to estimates based on excess deaths from 185 countries and territories. The study estimates a further 599,300 lives could have been saved if the World Health Organisation’s target of vaccinating 40% of the population in each country with two or more doses by the end of…

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Cancer clinical trials bounce back after significant COVID-19 disruption: Data from two large US cancer centers

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News

Data from two large cancer centres in the United States have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic caused substantial disruption to clinical trials for cancer treatment and care. The research, published in Annals of Oncology, shows that, compared to the immediate pre-pandemic period, there was a 46% decrease in new patient accruals, and a 24% decrease in newly activated trials between March and May 2020. In particular, a pronounced decrease in the numbers of new patients recruited to trials at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, Massachusetts) and the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai Medical School (New York) occurred in academically sponsored trials as opposed to…

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