“Neuroendocrine tumors and related therapies do not make patients more vulnerable to Covid-19. Cancer treatment must not be interrupted. No specific correlation seems to emerge between neuroendocrine neoplasms, which in Italy affect about 3 thousand people every year, and the Sars-CoV-2 virus “. This is what an article published by Allies for Health, the portal dedicated to medical-scientific information created by Novartis, which dedicates an in-depth study to the ‘Intensive’ study, a project coordinated by the Division of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology and Neuroendocrine Tumors of the European Institute of Oncology (Ieo) in Milan, published in the ‘European Journal of Cancer’. This is the “first and only international multicenter study on the impact of the pandemic on patients affected by these rare neoplasms”, reads the article about the research carried out by IRCCS founded by Umberto Veronesi.
Of the 81 centers contacted worldwide, 37 expressed interest in participating in the study and only 8 had recruited patients at the time of the first interim analysis in March 2021. These 8 centers recruited 89 patients with different types and degrees of neuroendocrine neoplasms. , all with Covid-19 positive molecular swabs. The majority of the patients had concomitant illnesses, mainly hypertension and diabetes, and presented with metastatic forms of low / medium grade gastropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, under treatment with somatostatin analogues and / or radiation therapy. Only in 8% of cases the neoplasm was high-grade and in 12% chemotherapy was underway.
The severity of the Sars-CoV-2 infection – the article reads – did not seem to be correlated with the characteristics of the clinical tumor picture, the authors noted. “More than 80% of patients have passed a symptomatic Covid, without particular sequelae, after various therapies, mostly antibiotics, and 11 remained even asymptomatic – the authors report – Only 3 needed sub-intensive therapy and none of intensive therapy. Seven patients (7.8%) died from Covid-19, almost all with comorbidities. In two thirds of the cases, the anti-cancer therapy was not interrupted “.
“2020 has seen a proliferation of scientific publications in oncology, many of which have covered the management of patients with cancer during the Covid-19 pandemic – he says. Nicola Fazio, director of the Ieo Tumors Program of the digestive and neuroendocrine systems and first author of the study – The recommendations were mostly of a general nature or related to very frequent types of cancer. Many cancer treatments have been postponed or suspended. It was not clear whether it was adequate for neuroendocrine neoplasms, as for other rare neoplasms, to follow the general recommendations of patients with cancer. Also specific publications on neuroendocrine neoplasms and Covid-19, which reported expert opinions, concluded by noting the absence of real reference data “.
“For this reason we considered it urgent to try to fill this gap and so, in record time, in May 2020 we designed the study – says the expert – we wrote the protocol, obtained the approval of our ethics committee and created a multidisciplinary group of clinicians, data managers, researchers, statisticians and computer scientists. After that we directly contacted more than 80 centers that deal with neuroendocrine neoplasms in the world, representative of the 5 continents and 39 countries. About 90% responded to the survey and 50% of the centers that responded asked to be allowed to participate. Among those that declined, most had not seen any patients with neuroendocrine neoplasia and Covid “.
The study “is active and 140 patients have been recruited to date. The number of activated centers is increasing. We continue with determination aware that the first real data on the relationship between patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms and Covid-19 are those of this work”, concludes Fazio. The full article is available on https://www.alleatiperlasalute.it/covid-le-cure-dei-tumori-neuroendocrini-non-aumentano-i-rischi-studio-ieo.