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Maroto Piñeiro et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2021;7:10 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2020.115 Metastasis and Treatment

Review Open Access

Management of lung cancer in the COVID-19
pandemic: a review

Fernando Maroto Piñeiro , Carmen Trinidad López , Javier de la Fuente Aguado 1
2
1
1 Department of Internal Medicine Hospital Povisa Ribera Salud Salamanca 5, Vigo 36211, Spain.
2 Radiology Service Hospital Povisa Ribera Salud Salamanca 5, Vigo 36211, Spain.

Correspondence to: Dr. Javier de la Fuente Aguado, Hospital Povisa Ribera Salud, Salamanca 5, Vigo 36211, Spain.
Email: jfuente@povisa.es
How to cite this article: Maroto Piñeiro F, Trinidad López C, de la Fuente Aguado J. Management of lung cancer in the COVID-19
pandemic: a review. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2021;7:10. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2020.115

Received: 16 Oct 2020 First Decision: 25 Nov 2020 Revised: 10 Dec 2020 Accepted: 13 Jan 2021 Published: 7 Feb 2021
Academic Editors: Robert Kratzke, Lucio Miele Copy Editor: Xi-Jun Chen Production Editor: Yue-Yue Zhang

Abstract
Since its inception, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected health care as a whole. Cancer patients in general and those
suffering from lung cancer in particular are a vulnerable group because of their many intrinsic characteristics and care
needs. How SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection affects these patients regarding their risk of infection and outcome in this
patient cohort is still to be determined. In this review, we tried to summarize our main concerns regarding COVID-19 in
the context of cancer patients from a clinical and multidisciplinary approach. Different types of lung cancer treatments
(chemotherapy, radiation therapy and immunotherapy) may also influence the risk of infection and condition the patient´s
risk of having a worse outcome. Lung cancer patients require frequent radiologic study follow-ups, which may be affected
by COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 related incidental radiologic findings can appear in routinely scheduled radiology
tests, which may be difficult to interpret. Also cancer treatment induced pneumonitis may have similar radiologic features
similar to those in acute SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and lead to a wrong diagnosis. The different health care needs, the
requirement for continuous health care access and follow-ups, and the clinical traials in which this patient population
might be enrrolled are all being affected by the current COVID-19 health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has put health
care providers and institutions in difficult situations and obliged them to face challenging ethical scenarios. These issues,
in turn, have also affected the psychological well-being of health care workers.

Keywords: COVID-19, cancer; ethics, CT thorax, lung cancer, cancer treatment, chemotherapy, immunotherapy

© The Author(s) 2021. 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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