Knowledge, attitude, and practice of radiation oncologists during COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Cancer care hospitals are taking measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Doctors and health-care workers might be suffering from burnout. Measures taken to reduce overcrowding in hospitals might be making access to essential cancer care difficult. The study aims to understand changes in practice, levels of burnout, and other psychological aspects in radiation oncologists working in a regional cancer center during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Data were collected through online Google Forms. The participants who were included in the study were doctors working in the department of radiation oncology. A 25min survey consisting of multiplechoice questions related to the changes at work during COVID19, and standardized questionnaires assessing fear of Covid 19 and burnout. The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) was used in this study to assess burnout. The Fear of COVID-19 Scale was used to assess fear induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results and Conclusion: Out of 71 professionals who participated in this study, most of them belonged to the category of residents (84.5%) and the rest were consultants (15.5%). Rescheduling of the patients' radiation treatment to convenient time slots to avoid overcrowding, preferring hypofractionated radiotherapy, and the use of telephonic consultations to prioritize outpatient appointments were the most commonly used measures. The results have shown that 62% of the doctors have experienced symptoms of exhaustion and disengagement, indicating a presence of burnout. However, aspects related to fear of COVID have been revealed to be less prevalent among the participants.

Nanocurcumin formulation: a possible therapeutic agent for post COVID inflammatory syndrome.

Over the last twenty months, the attention of the world has been focusing on managing the unprecedented and devastating wave of COVID-19 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV 2) and mitigating its impacts. Recent findings indicated that high levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines are leading cause of poor prognosis in severely ill COVID-19 patients. Presently, the multiple variants and highly contagious nature of virus makes challenge humongous. The shortage and vaccine hesitancy also prompted to develop antiviral therapeutic agents to manage this pandemic. Nanocurcumin has potential antiviral activities and also beneficial in post COVID inflammatory complications. We have developed nanocurcumin based formulation using pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) which protects cardio-pulmonary function and mitochondrial homeostasis in hypobaric hypoxia induced right ventricular hypertrophy in animal model and human ventricular cardiomyocytes. Nanocurcumin based formulation (NCF) with improved bioavailability, has proven several holistic therapeutic effects including myocardial protection, and prevents edema formation, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, maintaining metabolic and mitochondrial homeostasis under hypoxic condition. The post COVID-inflammatory syndrome also reported to cause impaired heart function, lung injuries and increased C-reactive protein level in severely ill patients. Thus, we speculate that NCF could be a new treatment option to manage post COVID-19 inflammatory syndrome.