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Vong et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2020;6:54 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2020.116 Metastasis and Treatment

Review Open Access

Lung cancer management during the COVID-19
pandemic: experience of a medical oncology unit at

a tertiary hospital in Singapore

Elise KY Vong 1,2,# , Puey-Ling Chia 1,2,# , Alex Y. Chang 1,3

1 Department of Medical Oncology, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore.
2 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Singapore.
3 Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21836, USA.
# Authors contributed equally.
Correspondence to: Dr Elise KY Vong, Department of Medical Oncology, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11 Jalan Tan Tock Seng,
Singapore 308433, Singapore. E-mail: elise_ky_vong@ttsh.com.sg
How to cite this article: Vong EKY, Chia PL, Chang AY. Lung cancer management during the COVID-19 pandemic: experience of
a medical oncology unit at a tertiary hospital in Singapore. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2020;6:54.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2020.116

Received: 22 Oct 2020 First Decision: 16 Nov 2020 Revised: 30 Nov 2020 Accepted: 2 Dec 2020 Published: 24 Dec 2020
Academic Editor: Robert Kratzke Copy Editor: Monica Wang Production Editor: Jing Yu

Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-
CoV-2), was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 11 March 2020. The pandemic
has had profound effects on healthcare systems across the world, and also poses unique challenges for oncology
services. Singapore saw its first imported case of COVID-19 on 23 January 2020, and there has since been 52,000
confirmed cases and 27 deaths as of early August 2020 locally. Oncologists have a special duty to our patients
to ensure patient safety and provide optimum care without undue disruption which may compromise long-term
cancer-specific outcomes. We herein examine the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our clinical
services, and share our experience with regards to manpower reconfiguration, infection control measures, diagnostic
evaluation of patients with suspected COVID-19, oncological management of lung cancer patients, as well as
changes in the education and training of juniors, from our unique position as a Medical Oncology department in Tan
Tock Seng Hospital, a tertiary hospital affiliated with the National Centre of Infectious Diseases in Singapore.

Keywords: COVID-19, lung cancer, thoracic cancer

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.

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