Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Oct 6, 2021; 9(28): 8441-8452
Published online Oct 6, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i28.8441
Clinical considerations for critically ill COVID-19 cancer patients: A systematic review
Chidambaram Ramasamy, Ajay Kumar Mishra, Kevin John John, Amos Lal
Chidambaram Ramasamy, Ajay Kumar Mishra, Department of Internal Medicine, Saint Vincent Hospital, Worcester, MA 01608, United States
Kevin John John, Department of Medicine, Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Bangalore 578954, India
Amos Lal, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55902, United States
Author contributions: Ramasamy C, Mishra AK and John KJ drafted the primary manuscript; Ramasamy C, Mishra AK, John KJ and Lal A searched literature and took part in the revision; and Lal A reviewed.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist. Attached with the current submission.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Amos Lal, FACP, MBBS, Doctor, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street, SW, Rochester, MN 55902, United States. lal.amos@mayo.edu
Received: February 18, 2021
Peer-review started: February 18, 2021
First decision: April 6, 2021
Revised: April 7, 2021
Accepted: August 30, 2021
Article in press: August 30, 2021
Published online: October 6, 2021
Processing time: 222 Days and 6.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Based on the analyses of 18 studies from major national and international cancer registries, it is evident that among symptomatic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cancer patients, approximately one in six patients required intensive level of care, and one in four patients had a fatal outcome. It is crucial to identify factors associated with the worse outcome as it helps to provide prognostic enrichment while discussing the goals of care in this specific patient population. Appropriate contingency planning for these patients in terms of goals of care and judicious resource allocation in the resource-poor regions is the key. Later studies showed an absence of association between mortality from COVID-19 infection and active cytotoxic or noncytotoxic chemotherapy and it could be continued with caution.