Neuro-Oncologic Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has shocked health-care systems around the world necessitating profound shifts in resources and alterations to standard therapies. The pandemic’s impact on delivering care to people with cancer is regionally specific and the resultant changes in disease outcomes are not yet known. Neuro-oncologic conditions are often rare diseases with few effective therapies that require coordinated care by a team of specialists organized through a multidisciplinary cancer conference. During this pandemic, additional factors need to be considered such as COVID-19 exposure and therapy-related risks in the setting of a COVID-19 infection. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in dramatic changes to therapeutic clinical trials which are a preferred path of care in neuro-oncology due to dismal outcomes and few effective standard therapies. Herein, we discuss plans of care for neuro-oncologic conditions in a pandemic environment where every health-care exposure is considered a risk and standard approaches may not be possible due to limited access to resources such as intensive care units and surgical suites. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.