scholarly journals Challenges of cancer immunotherapy and chemotherapy during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 030089162110639
Author(s):  
Mobina Fathi ◽  
Kimia Vakili ◽  
Kimia Jazi ◽  
Mohammad Amin Sadeghi ◽  
Mohammadreza Hajiesmaeili ◽  
...  

People at high risk of morbidity and mortality from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including patients dealing with malignancies and patients on immunosuppressive anticancer therapies, need to be followed carefully as the pandemic continues. Challenges in continuing cancer management and patient monitoring are of concern given the importance of timing in cancer therapy. Alternative treatment decisions and priorities are also important considerations. The efficacy and safety of various cancer treatments in patients with COVID-19 are other important considerations. In this systematic review, we summarize the potential risks and benefits of cancer treatments applied to patients with COVID-19 and malignant tumors. Using the PubMed and Scopus databases, we reviewed studies involving cancer therapy and COVID-19 to address the recent discoveries and related challenges of cancer therapy in patients with COVID-19 and cancer.

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 131-133
Author(s):  
Slobodan Janković

The COVID-19 pandemic required rapid response to the needs of critically ill patients, and one of the solutions was re-purposing of drugs with wide spectrum of antiviral action for treatment of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The re-purposing characteristically started with outof-label use in single or series of cases, to continue after the first promising results with randomised clinical trials. There are several drugs that are currently tested in ongoing clinical trials: antimalarials hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, HIV protease inhibitors lopinavir/ritonavir, broad spectrum antivirals umifenovir (anti-influenza drug) and favipiravir, antiparasitary drug ivermectin and nucleotide analogue remdesivir. However, up to date only a few trials are completed and published, precluding definitive conclusions about efficacy and safety of these drugs. Until major clinical trials are completed, physicians who decide to use these drugs out-of-label should properly inform their patients of all potential risks and benefits and seek for their consent before administration of the drugs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Yan Huiquan ◽  
Lyu Penghui ◽  
Wang Ling ◽  
Yu Zhiming

In the face of the growing incidence of malignant tumors (about 3.929 million, data issued in January 2019) and the death rate (about 2.338 million, data issued in January 2019) and the limitation of the application of informatics in cancer treatment, this paper tried to use TRIZ theory to deduce new ideas about cancer treatments, perform literature analysis on schemes, and make retrieval strategy for meta-analyses on cancer therapy. By using TRIZ theory and information to analyze the fields of cancers, the research schemes for selecting documents on cancer therapy were presented. After retrieving the documents, we exported all those articles in text format. We further analyzed the research status with the software CiteSpace and Bibliographic Information Mining System (BICOMS) by using different keywords, regions, countries, schools, authors, geography, institutes, etc. We also performed the cluster analysis by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software and performed two-way cluster analysis by using Gluto software. The hot areas of research and their tendency or distribution were analyzed. The search strategy was set and the retrieving results were tried.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Rodriguez Cairoli ◽  
Francisco Appiani ◽  
Juan Manuel Sambade ◽  
Daniel Comandé ◽  
Lina Camacho Arteaga ◽  
...  

Aim: To perform a systematic review to determine the efficacy/safety of PGx-guided opioid therapy for chronic/postoperative pain. Materials & methods: We searched PubMed and other specialized databases. Articles were considered if they compared the efficacy/safety of PGx-guided opioid therapy versus usual care. The risk of bias assessment was performed using Cochrane tools. Results: A total of 3794 records were retrieved. Only five were included for data extraction. A lower requirement of analgesics during postoperative in the PGx-guided intervention arm was reported in two studies. Also, two studies reported significant pain improvement in favor of the PGx-guided therapy when analyzing the subgroup of patients with a high-risk CYP2D6 phenotype. Conclusion: Despite the findings described, information on the efficacy/safety of this intervention is scarce.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett L. Houston ◽  
Kelsey Uminski ◽  
Thomas Mutter ◽  
Emily Rimmer ◽  
Donald S. Houston ◽  
...  

Blood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Mydah Sajid Hashmi ◽  
Ali Jaan ◽  
Muhammad Ans Sharif ◽  
Summera Aziz ◽  
Zahoor Ahmed ◽  
...  

Introduction: Multiple myeloma (MM) plasma cells express CD38, which is the target of isatuximab (ISA), a monoclonal antibody (mAb), approved for treatment. This systematic review aims to explore the efficacy and safety of ISA based regimens for the treatment of relapsed refractory MM (RRMM). Methods: A systematic search of the literature was performed by searching PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Clinicaltrials.gov. Our search strategy included MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms and keywords for multiple myeloma, and isatuximmab including trade name and generic name from the date of inception to June 5, 2020. Initial databases search yielded 371 articles. After excluding review articles, duplicates, and non-relevant articles, we included five clinical trials reporting the efficacy and safety of ISA for RRMM. Results: Among a total of 526 enrolled patients, 517 patients were evaluated, ISA was given as a monotherapy in 84 patients and given as a part of the combination regimen in 433 patients. In these studies, patients were refractory to multiple lines of therapy. In phase III trial, Attal et al. (2019) studied ISA + Pomalidomide (P) and dexamethasone (d) (n=307) compared with Pd (n=153) with an overall response rate (ORR) of 63% (n=97) in ISA-PD group compared to 32% (n=49) in PD group. At a median follow-up of 11·6 months, median progression-free survival (PFS) was 11·5 months (95% CI: 0·9-13·9) in the ISA-PD group versus 6·5 months (95% CI: 4·5-8·3) in the PD group; hazard ratio (HR) 0·596, (95% CI: 0·44-0·81; p=0·001). Martin et al. (2019) studied ISA as monotherapy in RRMM patients with a median of five prior therapy and observed an ORR of 20 % (n=17) and clinical benefit rate (CBR) of 16.7 % (n=14). For the high-risk cohort, the ORR was 16.7% (3/18), and CBR 27.8% and progression-free survival (PFS) was 2.9 months (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.87 to 5.49). In another phase 1b clinical trial by Mikhael et al. (2019) using ISA-Pd. It showed an ORR of 62.2% (n=28), and partial response (PR) of 35.6% (n=16) with median PFS of 17.6 months (95 % CI: 6.8-20.5 months). Richter et al. (2018) reported a phase 1b clinical trial of ISA in combination with carfilzomib with ORR of 69% (n=20), and PR of 41.4% (n=12). Martin et al. (2017) (phase 1b) studied ISA + lenalidomide + d. The ORR was 56% (n=29) and median PFS was 8.5 months (95 % CI: 4.73-16.59). The ORR of 31% was observed in the high-risk cohort. The majority of adverse effects were hematological: pancytopenia. The main non-hematological adverse effects encountered were infusion-related reactions, fatigue, upper and lower respiratory tract infections (table 02). Conclusion: Isatuximab showed promising responses for the treatment of RRMM, maximal responses were observed with combination regimens. Disclosures Anwer: Incyte, Seattle Genetics, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, AbbVie Pharma, Astellas Pharma, Celegene, Millennium Pharmaceuticals.: Honoraria, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau.


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