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Live Notes from Town Hall for Patients with Leading Oncologists on Lung Cancer and COVID19 3_28_20

Posted in Cancer and Current Therapeutics, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, Cancer Informatics, Cancer Prevention: Research & Programs, Conference Coverage with Social Media, COVID-19, tagged , , , , , on March 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Live Notes from Town Hall for Patients with Leading Oncologists on Lung Cancer and COVID19 3_28_20

Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD

UPDATED 3/31/2020

Leading Thoracic Oncologists from the United States and Milan, Italy shared their opinions and views on treating lung cancer patients during this COVID-19 pandemic.  Included in the panel is a thoracic oncologist from Milan Italy who gave special insights into the difficulties and the procedures they are using to help control the spread of infection within this high at-risk patient population and changes to current treatment strategy in light of this current virus outbreak.  Please see live notes and can follow on Twitter at #LungCancerandCOVID19.  Included below is the recording of the Zoom session.

 

UPDATED 3/29/2020

Leading Lung Cancer Oncologists from around the world are meeting and discussing concerns for lung cancer patients and oncologist during the novel coronavirus (SARS-COV2; COVID19) pandemic.  The town hall “COVID-19 and the Impact on Thoracic Oncology” will be held on Zoom on Saturday March 28, 2020 at 10:00 – 11:30 AM EST. sponsored by Axiom Healthcare Strategies . You can register at

Please join this virtual Town Hall

Zoom link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/846752048

Zoom Webinar ID: 846-752-048

eSpeakers

Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor; Chief Network Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Smilow Cancer Network

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Ensign Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Professor of Pharmacology; Chief of Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital; Associate Cancer Center Director for Translational Research, Yale Cancer Center

 Kurt Schalper, MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Pathology; Director, Translational Immuno-oncology Laboratory

Martin J. Edelman, MD, Chair, Department of Hematology/Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center

Corey J. Langer, MD , Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Hossain Borghaei, DO, MS , Chief of Thoracic Medical Oncology and Director of Lung Cancer Risk Assessment, Fox Chase Cancer Center

Marina Garassino, MD, Fondazione IRCCS Instituto Nazionale del Tumori

Kristen Ashley Marrone, MD, Thoracic Medical Oncologist. Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

Taofeek Owonikoko, MD, PhD, MSCR, Medical Oncologist, Emory University School of Medicine

Jeffrey D. Bradley, MD, FACR, FASTRO , Emory University School of Medicine

Brendon Stiles, M.D, Weil Cornell

@pharma_BI will be Live Tweeting in Real Time this Town Hall

Please follow at the following # (hashtags)

#LungCancerandCOVID19

#Livingwithcancer

#LungCancer

#NoOneAlone

and

UPDATED 3/29/2020

Below is a collection of live Tweets from this meeting as well as some notes and comments from each of the speakers and panelists.  The recording of this Town Hall will be posted on this site when available.  The Town Hall was well attended with over 250 participants

Town Hall Notes

The following represent some notes taken at this Town Hall.

Dr. Owonkiko: 1-2% lethality in China; for patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer 1) limit contact between patient, physician and healthcare facility = telemedicine and oral chemo suggested 2) for immunotherapy if i.v. must monitor health carefully

Dr. Kurt Schalper: on COVID19 testing: Three types of tests each having pros and cons.

  •     viral culture: not always practical as you need lots of specimen
  • ELISA: looking for circulating antibodies but not always specific for type of coronavirus
  • RT-PCR: most sensitive but right now not much clarity on best primers to use; he noted that there is a 15% variance in test results using different primers to different targeted COVID19 genes

Dr. Marina Garassino: The Lombardi outbreak was 1st in Italy and took them by surprise.  She admits they were about one month behind in preparation where they did not have enough masks as late as January 31.  It was impractical to socially distance given Italian customs in greeting each other.  In addition, they had to determine which facilities would be COVID negative and COVID positive an this required access to testing.  Right now they are only testing symptomatic patients and healthcare workers have to test negative multiple times.  As concerning therapy with lung cancer patients, they have been delaying as much as possible the initiation of therapy.  Patients that are on immunotherapy and immunosuppresive drugs are being monitored by CT scan more often during this pandemic so as instances of pneumotitis began increasing they were unsure if these patients are at increased risk of infection to COVID19 or just a bias in that they are screening more often so their risk to COVID 19 is unclear.  Dr. Garissino also felt we need to move from hospital based to community based measures of prevention against COVID infection (social distancing, citizens more vigilant).  She noted that usually the cancer patients are more careful with respect to preventative measures than the general populace.  Healthcare workers have to test negative twice in three days if they had been in close contact with a COVID postitive patient.  However her hospital is still running at 80% capacity so patients are getting treated. However there are ethical issues as to who gets treated, who gets respirators, and other ethical issues related to unfortunate rationing of care.

Dr. Anne Chiang: Scheduled visits have notably decreased.  They have seen patients visits decrease from 4500 down to 2300 in two weeks but telemedicine visits or virtual visits have increased to 1000 so are replacing the on site visits.  She also said they are trying to reduce or eliminate the extremely immuno-suppressive drugs from chemotherapy regimens.  For example they are removing pemetrexemed from standard regimens and also considering neoadjuvant chemotherapy.  As far as biopsies, liquid biopsies can be obtained in the home so more preferred as patients do not have to come in for biopsy.

Dr. Edelman: Fox Chase is somewhat unique in being an NCI center which only does oncology so they rely on neighboring Jeanes Hospital of the Temple University Health System for a lot of their outpatient and surgical and general medicine needs.  Patients who will be transferred back to Fox Chase are screened for COVID19.

Brenden Stiles: Lung cancer surgeries have ground to a halt.  He did only one last week.  The hospital wants to conserve resources and considers lung cancer surgery to great a COVID risk.  They have shut down elective surgeries and there are no clinical trials being conducted.  He said that lung cancer research will be negatively impacted by the pandemic as resources are shuttled to COVID research efforts.

 Live Tweets

 

Other article of note on Coronavirus (COVID19) please see our Coronavirus Portal at

https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/

 

 

 

 

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