Urological cancer patients receiving treatment during COVID-19: a single-centre perspective

Abstract

Background Active cancer, immunosuppressive treatments and immunotherapies have been reported to increase cancer patients’ risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection. For patients and clinicians, treatment risk must be weighed against disease progression. Methods This retrospective case series surveys urological cancer patients who made informed decisions to continue anticancer treatment (ACT) at one centre from March to June 2020. Results Sixty-one patients (44 bladder, 10 prostate, 7 upper urinary tract cancers) received 195 cycles of ACT (99 chemotherapy, 59 immunotherapy, 37 as part of ongoing clinical trials), with a range of indications: 43 palliative, 10 neoadjuvant, 8 adjuvant. One patient tested positive for COVID-19 but experienced only mild symptoms. Fourteen patients interrupted treatment outside of their schedule, seven of these due to potential COVID-19 associated risk. ACT supportive steroids were not associated with higher rates of COVID-19. Conclusions This single-centre series reports that ACT administration did not result in an apparent excess in symptomatic COVID-19 infections.