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Browsing: COVID-19 Pandemic

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

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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COVID-19 pandemic reduced breast, cervical, colorectal cancer screenings by millions in 2020, study finds

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News, Screening & Prevention

New findings led by researchers atthe American Cancer Society (ACS) show the number of women in the United States who reported having a recent (in the past year) breast cancer or cervical cancer screening dropped by 2.13 million (6%) and 4.47 million (11%) respectively in 2020 compared to 2018. The study is the first of its kind to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer screenings nationally using population-based data. The results are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Open Network. “COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact in March and April of 2020, as screenings initially dropped…

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Population-scale study highlights ongoing risk of COVID-19 in some cancer patients despite vaccination

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News

A study co-led by the Universities of Oxford, Birmingham and Southampton and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), published in Lancet Oncology by the UK Coronavirus Cancer Evaluation Project, has found that while COVID-19 vaccination is effective in most cancer patients, the level of protection against COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and death offered by the vaccine is less than in the general population and vaccine effectiveness wanes more quickly. Dr Lennard Lee, Department of Oncology, University of Oxford who led the study said: ‘We know that people with cancer have a higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease and that the immune response…

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Early days of COVID-19 pandemic brought increased anxiety for some cancer survivors

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Featured News, Latest News, Psycho-oncology, Survivorship and QoL

Among the many lessons collectively learned during the initial months of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic was this: The experience was uncharted psychological and emotional terrain. It wasn’t uncommon for people across the globe to express uncertainty about how to navigate new stresses and new emotions. For University of Colorado Cancer Center member Joanna Arch, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU Boulder, USA, the early days of the pandemic were a time to consider how cancer survivors who previously participated in group Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) were coping with the fear and uncertainty. Would the skills they…

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AACR 2022: Paediatric cancer patients in lower-and middle-income countries faced significantly higher mortality risk during the COVID-19 pandemic

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By on AACR, COVID-19 Pandemic, Events, Latest News, Paediatric Oncology & AYA

During the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, paediatric cancer patients from lower-and middle-income countries faced a higher risk of all-cause mortality than those in high-income countries, according to data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2022, held April 8-13. This study was concurrently published in BMJ Open. Paediatric cancer, while rare, is the world’s second-leading non-communicable cause of death among children. Research has shown that survival rates from childhood cancers are dramatically different in lower-and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with high-income countries (HICs), explained the study’s presenter, Muhammed Elhadi, MBBCh, a medical doctor at the University of Tripoli in Libya.…

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AACR 2022: Novel COVID-19 vaccine may provide protection for cancer patients with B-cell deficiencies

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By on AACR, COVID-19 Pandemic, Events, Latest News

CoVac-1, a new vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, induced T-cell immune responses in 93 percent of patients with B-cell deficiencies, including many patients with leukaemia and lymphoma, according to results presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2022. “To our knowledge, CoVac-1 is currently the only peptide-based vaccine candidate specifically developed and evaluated for immunocompromised patients,” said Juliane Walz, MD, senior author of the study and a professor of peptide-based immunotherapy at the University Hospital Tübingen in Germany. While vaccination induces a robust immune response against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the majority of individuals, approved vaccines have shown decreased efficacy in many immunocompromised people. Patients…

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Vaccine protects most cancer patients from COVID, but risk remains higher for patients with blood cancers

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By on COVID-19 Pandemic, Latest News

Using America’s largest COVID-19 data resource, a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center in the USA found the COVID-19 vaccine protected most cancer patients from getting COVID. However, patients with certain types of cancer have a higher and widely varied risk of breakthrough COVID infections after receiving the COVID vaccine. Jing Su, PhD, assistant professor in the Indiana University School of Medicine Department of Biostatistics was the lead investigator for the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. He is also the core associate director of real-world data for the cancer centre’s Biostatistics and Data Management Core. Su…

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Black patients with cancer fare worse with COVID-19, study shows

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

Black patients with cancer experienced significantly worse outcomes after COVID-19 diagnosis than non-Hispanic white cancer patients in a study published March 28 in JAMA Network Open. Investigators of the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, which includes more than 125 cancer centers and other organizations, studied the electronic health records of 3,506 patients for the analysis, including data of 1,068 Black patients and 2,438 non-Hispanic white patients. “We saw worse COVID-19 illness at presentation, higher rates of hospitalisation, higher rates of intensive care unit admission, higher rates of mechanical ventilation and worse death rates in Black patients compared to non-Hispanic white patients, even…

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Black patients with cancer fare worse with COVID-19, study shows

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

Black patients with cancer experienced significantly worse outcomes after COVID-19 diagnosis than non-Hispanic white cancer patients in a study published March 28 in JAMA Network Open. Investigators of the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium, which includes more than 125 cancer centers and other organizations, studied the electronic health records of 3,506 patients for the analysis, including data of 1,068 Black patients and 2,438 non-Hispanic white patients. “We saw worse COVID-19 illness at presentation, higher rates of hospitalisation, higher rates of intensive care unit admission, higher rates of mechanical ventilation and worse death rates in Black patients compared to non-Hispanic white patients, even…

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Cancer treatment and diagnosis backlogs during COVID-19 may affect cancer survival

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By on Commentary, COVID-19 Pandemic, Featured Commentary, Latest News

Timothy P Hanna, Queen’s University, Ontario Unlike the COVID-19 pandemic, the cancer pandemic has raged on for centuries, though it similarly afflicts people in all corners of the world. In 2020 alone, over 19 million people were diagnosed with cancer globally, and almost 10 million people die from cancer every year. The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating to those infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with over 481 million confirmed cases and 6.1 million deaths. The number of people who have fallen ill or died due to unintended consequences of pandemic control measures has yet to be determined, though these invisible…

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