Radiotherapy and COVID-19 pandemic – a review of the current recommendations

Abstract

Cancer patients are at high risk for developing severe symptoms with a high mortality rate due to infection of COVID-19. Radiation therapy is one of the main treatment modalities of central nervous system tumors and lung cancer. Radiotherapy is often delivered in a number of fractions, which implies many visits to the radiotherapy center and thus possibly more exposure to the COVID-19. The convenient compromise between the exposure of the patients to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the optimal treatment is questionable. The most used measures in radiotherapy centers are classification of patients into priority groups and frequent use of hypofractionation. From the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, only a few expert group consensuses of radiotherapy treatment are published. In this paper we briefly review available practical recommendations of the expert groups for radiation therapy and oncology as well as the expert opinions for radiotherapy of the central nervous system tumors and lung cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; radiotherapy; brain tumors; lung cancer