Surgery and COVID-19: Which Strategies to Apply in Oncologic Patients

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Background

The Coronavirus outbreak has shocked and overwhelmed the Italian and world health systems; since January 30th 2020, WHO (World Health Organization) has declared a Public Health Emergency, giving recommendations. However, all countries reacted without an agreement and/or coordination on the procedures to be adopted. Therefore COVID-19 has developed into a pandemic, and some forms of contagion mitigation, borrowed from China, have been gradually adopted in other countries, firstly in Italy. Most health systems appear to be hit hard by two problems: the availability of hospital beds, especially ICU beds, and by the number of health personnel contracting the infection, therefore affecting the medical workforce. Thus, as previously in China, a reduction or even a suspension of elective surgery is expected in all affected countries.

It is clear that surgical activity has been considerably reduced to give beds and whole wards to COVID-19 patients. We believe that the real problem will arise in the coming months with new cancer diagnoses that need to be treated. We will focus on the following issues within this Research Topic:

1. How to operate on cancer patients who do not need intensive therapy when surgeons are saturated with COVID-19 patients.
2. The possibility of sending patients to COVID-19 free hub centers for cancer surgery.
3. What to do if the cancer patient is infected with Coronavirus. Do we have operating rooms dedicated to the COVID-19 infected?
4. To evaluate alternative solutions with oncologists and radiotherapists that are equally effective for these patients.

We would like contributors to address all the various strategies put in place at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, to offer the best possible treatment to cancer patients, taking into account that they are characterized by a high potential risk for COVID-19. In addition, we would like to discuss how test analysis must be implemented to identify SARS-Cov-2 positive patients in advance, despite preoperative diagnosis and active clinical surveillance being mandatory. Original Research papers, Reviews, Methodology papers, and Systematic Reviews or meta-analyses are all accepted formats of paper for this Research Topic.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, General Surgery, Oncology, Thoracic Surgery

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