Montelukast in hospitalized patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

OBJECTIVE: Several therapeutic agents have been assessed for the treatment of COVID-19, but few approaches have been proven efficacious. Because leukotriene receptor antagonists, such as montelukast have been shown to reduce both cytokine release and lung inflammation in preclinical models of viral influenza and acute respiratory distress syndrome, we hypothesized that therapy with montelukast could be used to treat COVID-19. The objective of this study was to determine if montelukast treatment would reduce the rate of clinical deterioration as measured by the COVID-19 Ordinal Scale. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of COVID-19 confirmed hospitalized patients treated with or without montelukast. We used "clinical deterioration" as the primary endpoint, a binary outcome defined as any increase in the Ordinal Scale value from Day 1 to Day 3 of the hospital stay, as these data were uniformly available for all admitted patients before hospital discharge. Rates of clinical deterioration between the montelukast and non-montelukast groups were compared using the Fisher's exact test. Univariate logistic regression was also used to assess the association between montelukast use and clinical deterioration. A total of 92 patients were analyzed, 30 who received montelukast at the discretion of the treating physician and 62 patients who did not receive montelukast. RESULTS: Patients receiving montelukast experienced significantly fewer events of clinical deterioration compared with patients not receiving montelukast (10% vs 32%, p = 0.022). Our findings suggest that montelukast associates with a reduction in clinical deterioration for COVID-19 confirmed patients as measured on the COVID-19 Ordinal Scale. CONCLUSIONS: Hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with montelukast had fewer events of clinical deterioration, indicating that this treatment may have clinical activity. While this retrospective study highlights a potential pathway for COVID-19 treatment, this hypothesis requires further study by prospective studies.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Brachytherapy During the Pandemic: A Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health Multisite Experience.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to evaluate whether the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in treatment delays in patients scheduled for or undergoing brachytherapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted across 4 affiliated sites after local institutional review board approval. The eligibility criteria were defined as all patients with cancer whose treatment plan included brachytherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic from February 24, 2020 to June 30, 2020. Treatment delays, cancellations, alterations of fractionation regimens, and treatment paradigm changes were evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 47 patients were eligible for the analysis. Median patient age at the time of treatment was 62 years (interquartile range, 56-70 years). Endometrial, cervical, and prostate cancers were the most common sites included in this analysis. Three patients (6.4%) with cervical cancer were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the course of their treatment. Interruptions of external beam radiation therapy (EBRT), cancellations of EBRT, cancellations of brachytherapy, and treatment delays due to COVID occurred in 5 (10.6%), 3 (6.4%), 8 (17%), and 9 (19%) patients, respectively. The mean and median number of days delayed for patients who experienced treatment interruptions were 16.3 days (standard deviation: 13.9 days) and 14 days (interquartile range, 5.75-23.75 days), respectively. For patients with cervical cancer, the mean and median overall treatment times defined as the time from the start of EBRT to the end of brachytherapy were 56 and 49 days, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the challenges the health care system faced during the pandemic, most patients with cancer were safely treated with minor treatment delays and interruptions. Long-term follow up is needed to assess the impact of COVID-19 and treatment interruptions on oncologic outcomes.

Radiation Fractionation Schedules Published During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review of the Quality of Evidence and Recommendations for Future Development.

PURPOSE: Numerous publications during the COVID-19 pandemic recommended the use of hypofractionated radiation therapy. This project assessed aggregate changes in the quality of the evidence supporting these schedules to establish a comprehensive evidence base for future reference and highlight aspects for future study. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Based on a systematic review of published recommendations related to dose fractionation during the COVID-19 pandemic, 20 expert panelists assigned to 14 disease groups named and graded the highest quality of evidence schedule(s) used routinely for each condition and also graded all COVID-era recommended schedules. The American Society for Radiation Oncology quality of evidence criteria were used to rank the schedules. Process-related statistics and changes in distributions of quality ratings of the highest-rated versus recommended COVID-19 era schedules were described by disease groups and for specific clinical scenarios. RESULTS: From January to May 2020 there were 54 relevant publications, including 233 recommended COVID-19-adapted dose fractionations. For site-specific curative and site-specific palliative schedules, there was a significant shift from established higher-quality evidence to lower-quality evidence and expert opinions for the recommended schedules (P = .022 and P < .001, respectively). For curative-intent schedules, the distribution of quality scores was essentially reversed (highest levels of evidence "pre-COVID" vs "in-COVID": high quality, 51.4% vs 4.8%; expert opinion, 5.6% vs 49.3%), although there was variation in the magnitude of shifts between disease sites and among specific indications. CONCLUSIONS: A large number of publications recommended hypofractionated radiation therapy schedules across numerous major disease sites during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were supported by a lower quality of evidence than the highest-quality routinely used dose fractionation schedules. This work provides an evidence-based assessment of these potentially practice-changing recommendations and informs individualized decision-making and counseling of patients. These data could also be used to support radiation therapy practices in the event of second waves or surges of the pandemic in new regions of the world.