COVID-19 PREVALENCE AND ONCOLOGIC OUTCOMES OF ASYMPTOMATIC PATIENTS WITH ACTIVE CANCER WHO RECEIVED CHEMOTHERAPY

Cemil Bilir¹, Emre Cakir¹, Burcu Gülbagcı¹, Mustafa Altindis², Hande Toptan², Ertugrul Guclu³, Ayse Demirci¹, İbrahim Vedat Bayoğlu¹, İlhan Hacıbekiroğlu¹, Ceyhun Varım^{1, *}

¹Department of Medical Oncology, Sakarya University Medicine Faculty, Sakarya, Turkey - ²Department of  Virology and Microbiology, Sakarya University Medicine Faculty, Sakarya, Turkey - ³Department of  Infection Disease, Sakarya University Medicine Faculty, Sakarya, Turkey

Introduction: The outbreak of the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become the most significant global health threat in the World. We do not have well-established guidelines for cancer patients. We aimed to clarify chemotherapy's oncologic outcomes in patients with active cancer and asymptomatic COVDI 19 disease.

Material and methods: This study is single-center research and designed prospectively. Only patients who were receiving intravenous systemic chemotherapy were selected and tested for COVID19 

Results: During the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic for Turkey, we started the study and analyzed 198 patients. Eighty (40%) patients were male, and 118 (60%) patients were female. Following the analysis, there was no nasal and pharyngeal swab specimen PCR positive patient, but 7 (3.5%) of 199 patients had blood antibody test positive and received their regular chemotehrapies. No patient died during the 90 days follow up.

Conclusions: Even though we cannot generalize, emergent chemotherapies can administered to the COVID-19 patients if the patient did not have any symptoms for COVID-19.