Open AccessCOVID‐19 pandemic and impact on cancer clinical trials: An academic medical center perspective
Author(s) -
Marcum Michelle,
Kurtzweil Nicky,
Vollmer Christine,
Schmid Lisa,
Vollmer Ashley,
Kastl Alison,
Acker Kelly,
Gulati Shuchi,
Grover Punita,
Herzog Thomas J.,
Ahmad Syed A.,
Sohal Davendra,
WiseDraper Trisha M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
cancer medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.403
H-Index - 53
ISSN - 2045-7634
DOI - 10.1002/cam4.3292
Subject(s) - pandemic , medicine , health care , clinical trial , clinical research , personal protective equipment , family medicine , cancer , covid-19 , demise , medical emergency , disease , economic growth , political science , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , economics , law
The COVID‐19 pandemic changed health‐care operations around the world and has interrupted standard clinical practices as well as created clinical research challenges for cancer patients. Cancer patients are uniquely susceptible to COVID‐19 infection and have some of the worst outcomes. Importantly, cancer therapeutics could potentially render cancer patients more susceptible to demise from COVID‐19 yet the poor survival outcome of many cancer diagnoses outweighs this risk. In addition, the pandemic has resulted in risks to health‐care workers and research staff driving important change in clinical research operations and procedures. Remote telephone and video visits, remote monitoring, electronic capture of signatures and data, and limiting sample collections have allowed the leadership in our institution to ensure the safety of our staff and patients while continuing critical clinical research operations. Here we discuss some of these unique challenges and our response to change that was necessary to continue cancer clinical research; and, the impacts the pandemic has caused including increases in efficiency for our cancer research office.