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Guidelines on delaying cancer surgery during COVID-19
Cancer surgeries may need to be delayed as hospitals are forced to allocate resources to a surge of COVID-19 patients, says the American College of Surgeons, as it issues a new set of recommendations in reaction to the crisis.
Most surgeons have already curtailed or have ceased to perform elective operations, the ACS notes, and recommends that surgeons continue to do so in order to preserve the necessary resources for care of critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new clinical guidance for elective surgical case triage during the pandemic includes recommendations for cancer surgery as well as for procedures that are specific to certain cancer types.
“These triage guidelines and joint recommendations are being issued as we appear to be entering a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic with more hospitals facing a potential push beyond their resources to care for critically ill patients,” commented ACS Executive Director David B. Hoyt, MD, in a statement.
“ACS will continue to monitor the landscape for surgical care but we feel this guidance document provides a good foundation for surgeons to begin enacting these triage recommendations today to help them make the best decisions possible for their patients during COVID-19,” he said.
For cancer surgery, which is often not elective but essential to treatment, ACS has issued general guidance for triaging patients, taking into account the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation.
First, decisions about whether to proceed with elective surgeries must consider the available resources of local facilities. The parties responsible for preparing the facility to manage coronavirus patients should be sharing information at regular intervals about constraints on local resources, especially personal protective equipment (PPE), which is running low in many jurisdictions. For example, if an elective case has a high likelihood of needing postoperative ICU care, it is imperative to balance the risk of delay against the need of availability for patients with COVID-19.
Second, cancer care coordination should use virtual technologies as much as possible, and facilities with tumor boards may find it helpful to locate multidisciplinary experts by virtual means, to assist with decision making and establishing triage criteria.
Three Phases of Pandemic
The ACS has also organized decision making into three phases that reflect the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation:
- Phase I. Semi-Urgent Setting (Preparation Phase) – few COVID-19 patients, hospital resources not exhausted, institution still has ICU ventilator capacity and COVID-19 trajectory not in rapid escalation phase
- Phase II. Urgent Setting – many COVID-19 patients, ICU and ventilator capacity limited, operating room supplies limited
- Phase III. Hospital resources are all routed to COVID-19 patients, no ventilator or ICU capacity, operating room supplies exhausted; patients in whom death is likely within hours if surgery is deferred
Breast Cancer Surgery
The ACS also issued specific guidance for several tumor types, including guidance for breast cancer surgery.
For phase I, surgery should be restricted to patients who are likely to experience compromised survival if it is not performed within next 3 months. This includes patients completing neoadjuvant treatment, those with clinical stage T2 or N1 ERpos/PRpos/HER2-negative tumors, patients with triple negative or HER2-positive tumors, discordant biopsies that are likely to be malignant, and removal of a recurrent lesion.
Phase II would be restricted to patients whose survival is threatened if surgery is not performed within the next few days. These would include incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuating a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
In Phase III, surgical procedures would be restricted to patients who may not survive if surgery is not performed within a few hours. This includes incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuation of a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
Colorectal Cancer Surgery
Guidance for colorectal cancer surgery is also split into the three phases of the pandemic.
Phase I would include cases needing surgical intervention as soon as feasible, while recognizing that the status of each hospital is likely to evolve over the next week or two. These patients would include those with nearly obstructing colon cancer or rectal cancer; cancers that require frequent transfusions; asymptomatic colon cancers; rectal cancers that do not respond to neoadjuvant chemoradiation; malignancies with a risk of local perforation and sepsis; and those with early stage rectal cancers that are not candidates for adjuvant therapy.
Phase II comprises patients needing surgery as soon as feasible, but recognizing that hospital status is likely to progress over the next few days. These cases include patients with a nearly obstructing colon cancer where stenting is not an option; those with nearly obstructing rectal cancer (should be diverted); cancers with high (inpatient) transfusion requirements; and cancers with pending evidence of local perforation and sepsis.
All colorectal procedures typically scheduled as routine should be delayed.
In Phase III, if the status of the facility is likely to progress within hours, the only surgery that should be performed would be for perforated, obstructed, or actively bleeding (inpatient transfusion dependent) cancers or those with sepsis. All other surgeries should be deferred.
Thoracic Cancer Surgery
Thoracic cancer surgery guidelines follow those for breast cancer. Phase I should be restricted to patients whose survival may be impacted if surgery is not performed within next 3 months. These include:
- Cases with solid or predominantly solid (>50%) lung cancer or presumed lung cancer (>2 cm), clinical node negative
- Node positive lung cancer
- Post-induction therapy cancer
- Esophageal cancer T1b or greater
- Chest wall tumors that are potentially aggressive and not manageable by alternative means
- Stenting for obstructing esophageal tumor
- Staging to start treatment (mediastinoscopy, diagnostic VATS for pleural dissemination)
- Symptomatic mediastinal tumors
- Patients who are enrolled in therapeutic clinical trials.
Phase II would permit surgery if survival will be impacted by a delay of a few days. These cases would include nonseptic perforated cancer of esophagus, a tumor-associated infection, and management of surgical complications in a hemodynamically stable patient.
All thoracic procedures considered to be routine/elective would be deferred.
Phase III restricts surgery to patients whose survival will be compromised if they do not undergo surgery within the next few hours. This group would include perforated cancer of esophagus in a septic patient, a patient with a threatened airway, sepsis associated with the cancer, and management of surgical complications in an unstable patient (active bleeding that requires surgery, dehiscence of airway, anastomotic leak with sepsis).
All other cases would be deferred.
Other Cancer Types
Although the ACS doesn’t have specific guidelines for all cancer types, a few are included in their general recommendations for the specialty.
For gynecologic surgeries, ACS lists cancer or suspected cancer as indications where significantly delayed surgery could cause “significant harm.”
Delays, in general, are not recommended for neurosurgery, which would include brain cancers. In pediatrics, most cancer surgery is considered “urgent,” where a delay of days to weeks could prove detrimental to the patient. This would comprise all solid tumors, including the initial biopsy and resection following neoadjuvant therapy.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Cancer surgeries may need to be delayed as hospitals are forced to allocate resources to a surge of COVID-19 patients, says the American College of Surgeons, as it issues a new set of recommendations in reaction to the crisis.
Most surgeons have already curtailed or have ceased to perform elective operations, the ACS notes, and recommends that surgeons continue to do so in order to preserve the necessary resources for care of critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new clinical guidance for elective surgical case triage during the pandemic includes recommendations for cancer surgery as well as for procedures that are specific to certain cancer types.
“These triage guidelines and joint recommendations are being issued as we appear to be entering a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic with more hospitals facing a potential push beyond their resources to care for critically ill patients,” commented ACS Executive Director David B. Hoyt, MD, in a statement.
“ACS will continue to monitor the landscape for surgical care but we feel this guidance document provides a good foundation for surgeons to begin enacting these triage recommendations today to help them make the best decisions possible for their patients during COVID-19,” he said.
For cancer surgery, which is often not elective but essential to treatment, ACS has issued general guidance for triaging patients, taking into account the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation.
First, decisions about whether to proceed with elective surgeries must consider the available resources of local facilities. The parties responsible for preparing the facility to manage coronavirus patients should be sharing information at regular intervals about constraints on local resources, especially personal protective equipment (PPE), which is running low in many jurisdictions. For example, if an elective case has a high likelihood of needing postoperative ICU care, it is imperative to balance the risk of delay against the need of availability for patients with COVID-19.
Second, cancer care coordination should use virtual technologies as much as possible, and facilities with tumor boards may find it helpful to locate multidisciplinary experts by virtual means, to assist with decision making and establishing triage criteria.
Three Phases of Pandemic
The ACS has also organized decision making into three phases that reflect the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation:
- Phase I. Semi-Urgent Setting (Preparation Phase) – few COVID-19 patients, hospital resources not exhausted, institution still has ICU ventilator capacity and COVID-19 trajectory not in rapid escalation phase
- Phase II. Urgent Setting – many COVID-19 patients, ICU and ventilator capacity limited, operating room supplies limited
- Phase III. Hospital resources are all routed to COVID-19 patients, no ventilator or ICU capacity, operating room supplies exhausted; patients in whom death is likely within hours if surgery is deferred
Breast Cancer Surgery
The ACS also issued specific guidance for several tumor types, including guidance for breast cancer surgery.
For phase I, surgery should be restricted to patients who are likely to experience compromised survival if it is not performed within next 3 months. This includes patients completing neoadjuvant treatment, those with clinical stage T2 or N1 ERpos/PRpos/HER2-negative tumors, patients with triple negative or HER2-positive tumors, discordant biopsies that are likely to be malignant, and removal of a recurrent lesion.
Phase II would be restricted to patients whose survival is threatened if surgery is not performed within the next few days. These would include incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuating a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
In Phase III, surgical procedures would be restricted to patients who may not survive if surgery is not performed within a few hours. This includes incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuation of a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
Colorectal Cancer Surgery
Guidance for colorectal cancer surgery is also split into the three phases of the pandemic.
Phase I would include cases needing surgical intervention as soon as feasible, while recognizing that the status of each hospital is likely to evolve over the next week or two. These patients would include those with nearly obstructing colon cancer or rectal cancer; cancers that require frequent transfusions; asymptomatic colon cancers; rectal cancers that do not respond to neoadjuvant chemoradiation; malignancies with a risk of local perforation and sepsis; and those with early stage rectal cancers that are not candidates for adjuvant therapy.
Phase II comprises patients needing surgery as soon as feasible, but recognizing that hospital status is likely to progress over the next few days. These cases include patients with a nearly obstructing colon cancer where stenting is not an option; those with nearly obstructing rectal cancer (should be diverted); cancers with high (inpatient) transfusion requirements; and cancers with pending evidence of local perforation and sepsis.
All colorectal procedures typically scheduled as routine should be delayed.
In Phase III, if the status of the facility is likely to progress within hours, the only surgery that should be performed would be for perforated, obstructed, or actively bleeding (inpatient transfusion dependent) cancers or those with sepsis. All other surgeries should be deferred.
Thoracic Cancer Surgery
Thoracic cancer surgery guidelines follow those for breast cancer. Phase I should be restricted to patients whose survival may be impacted if surgery is not performed within next 3 months. These include:
- Cases with solid or predominantly solid (>50%) lung cancer or presumed lung cancer (>2 cm), clinical node negative
- Node positive lung cancer
- Post-induction therapy cancer
- Esophageal cancer T1b or greater
- Chest wall tumors that are potentially aggressive and not manageable by alternative means
- Stenting for obstructing esophageal tumor
- Staging to start treatment (mediastinoscopy, diagnostic VATS for pleural dissemination)
- Symptomatic mediastinal tumors
- Patients who are enrolled in therapeutic clinical trials.
Phase II would permit surgery if survival will be impacted by a delay of a few days. These cases would include nonseptic perforated cancer of esophagus, a tumor-associated infection, and management of surgical complications in a hemodynamically stable patient.
All thoracic procedures considered to be routine/elective would be deferred.
Phase III restricts surgery to patients whose survival will be compromised if they do not undergo surgery within the next few hours. This group would include perforated cancer of esophagus in a septic patient, a patient with a threatened airway, sepsis associated with the cancer, and management of surgical complications in an unstable patient (active bleeding that requires surgery, dehiscence of airway, anastomotic leak with sepsis).
All other cases would be deferred.
Other Cancer Types
Although the ACS doesn’t have specific guidelines for all cancer types, a few are included in their general recommendations for the specialty.
For gynecologic surgeries, ACS lists cancer or suspected cancer as indications where significantly delayed surgery could cause “significant harm.”
Delays, in general, are not recommended for neurosurgery, which would include brain cancers. In pediatrics, most cancer surgery is considered “urgent,” where a delay of days to weeks could prove detrimental to the patient. This would comprise all solid tumors, including the initial biopsy and resection following neoadjuvant therapy.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Cancer surgeries may need to be delayed as hospitals are forced to allocate resources to a surge of COVID-19 patients, says the American College of Surgeons, as it issues a new set of recommendations in reaction to the crisis.
Most surgeons have already curtailed or have ceased to perform elective operations, the ACS notes, and recommends that surgeons continue to do so in order to preserve the necessary resources for care of critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new clinical guidance for elective surgical case triage during the pandemic includes recommendations for cancer surgery as well as for procedures that are specific to certain cancer types.
“These triage guidelines and joint recommendations are being issued as we appear to be entering a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic with more hospitals facing a potential push beyond their resources to care for critically ill patients,” commented ACS Executive Director David B. Hoyt, MD, in a statement.
“ACS will continue to monitor the landscape for surgical care but we feel this guidance document provides a good foundation for surgeons to begin enacting these triage recommendations today to help them make the best decisions possible for their patients during COVID-19,” he said.
For cancer surgery, which is often not elective but essential to treatment, ACS has issued general guidance for triaging patients, taking into account the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation.
First, decisions about whether to proceed with elective surgeries must consider the available resources of local facilities. The parties responsible for preparing the facility to manage coronavirus patients should be sharing information at regular intervals about constraints on local resources, especially personal protective equipment (PPE), which is running low in many jurisdictions. For example, if an elective case has a high likelihood of needing postoperative ICU care, it is imperative to balance the risk of delay against the need of availability for patients with COVID-19.
Second, cancer care coordination should use virtual technologies as much as possible, and facilities with tumor boards may find it helpful to locate multidisciplinary experts by virtual means, to assist with decision making and establishing triage criteria.
Three Phases of Pandemic
The ACS has also organized decision making into three phases that reflect the acuity of the local COVID-19 situation:
- Phase I. Semi-Urgent Setting (Preparation Phase) – few COVID-19 patients, hospital resources not exhausted, institution still has ICU ventilator capacity and COVID-19 trajectory not in rapid escalation phase
- Phase II. Urgent Setting – many COVID-19 patients, ICU and ventilator capacity limited, operating room supplies limited
- Phase III. Hospital resources are all routed to COVID-19 patients, no ventilator or ICU capacity, operating room supplies exhausted; patients in whom death is likely within hours if surgery is deferred
Breast Cancer Surgery
The ACS also issued specific guidance for several tumor types, including guidance for breast cancer surgery.
For phase I, surgery should be restricted to patients who are likely to experience compromised survival if it is not performed within next 3 months. This includes patients completing neoadjuvant treatment, those with clinical stage T2 or N1 ERpos/PRpos/HER2-negative tumors, patients with triple negative or HER2-positive tumors, discordant biopsies that are likely to be malignant, and removal of a recurrent lesion.
Phase II would be restricted to patients whose survival is threatened if surgery is not performed within the next few days. These would include incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuating a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
In Phase III, surgical procedures would be restricted to patients who may not survive if surgery is not performed within a few hours. This includes incision and drainage of breast abscess, evacuation of a hematoma, revision of an ischemic mastectomy flap, and revascularization/revision of an autologous tissue flap (autologous reconstruction should be deferred).
Colorectal Cancer Surgery
Guidance for colorectal cancer surgery is also split into the three phases of the pandemic.
Phase I would include cases needing surgical intervention as soon as feasible, while recognizing that the status of each hospital is likely to evolve over the next week or two. These patients would include those with nearly obstructing colon cancer or rectal cancer; cancers that require frequent transfusions; asymptomatic colon cancers; rectal cancers that do not respond to neoadjuvant chemoradiation; malignancies with a risk of local perforation and sepsis; and those with early stage rectal cancers that are not candidates for adjuvant therapy.
Phase II comprises patients needing surgery as soon as feasible, but recognizing that hospital status is likely to progress over the next few days. These cases include patients with a nearly obstructing colon cancer where stenting is not an option; those with nearly obstructing rectal cancer (should be diverted); cancers with high (inpatient) transfusion requirements; and cancers with pending evidence of local perforation and sepsis.
All colorectal procedures typically scheduled as routine should be delayed.
In Phase III, if the status of the facility is likely to progress within hours, the only surgery that should be performed would be for perforated, obstructed, or actively bleeding (inpatient transfusion dependent) cancers or those with sepsis. All other surgeries should be deferred.
Thoracic Cancer Surgery
Thoracic cancer surgery guidelines follow those for breast cancer. Phase I should be restricted to patients whose survival may be impacted if surgery is not performed within next 3 months. These include:
- Cases with solid or predominantly solid (>50%) lung cancer or presumed lung cancer (>2 cm), clinical node negative
- Node positive lung cancer
- Post-induction therapy cancer
- Esophageal cancer T1b or greater
- Chest wall tumors that are potentially aggressive and not manageable by alternative means
- Stenting for obstructing esophageal tumor
- Staging to start treatment (mediastinoscopy, diagnostic VATS for pleural dissemination)
- Symptomatic mediastinal tumors
- Patients who are enrolled in therapeutic clinical trials.
Phase II would permit surgery if survival will be impacted by a delay of a few days. These cases would include nonseptic perforated cancer of esophagus, a tumor-associated infection, and management of surgical complications in a hemodynamically stable patient.
All thoracic procedures considered to be routine/elective would be deferred.
Phase III restricts surgery to patients whose survival will be compromised if they do not undergo surgery within the next few hours. This group would include perforated cancer of esophagus in a septic patient, a patient with a threatened airway, sepsis associated with the cancer, and management of surgical complications in an unstable patient (active bleeding that requires surgery, dehiscence of airway, anastomotic leak with sepsis).
All other cases would be deferred.
Other Cancer Types
Although the ACS doesn’t have specific guidelines for all cancer types, a few are included in their general recommendations for the specialty.
For gynecologic surgeries, ACS lists cancer or suspected cancer as indications where significantly delayed surgery could cause “significant harm.”
Delays, in general, are not recommended for neurosurgery, which would include brain cancers. In pediatrics, most cancer surgery is considered “urgent,” where a delay of days to weeks could prove detrimental to the patient. This would comprise all solid tumors, including the initial biopsy and resection following neoadjuvant therapy.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
Cardiac symptoms can be first sign of COVID-19
In about 7% of people with confirmed novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and 22% of the critically ill, the virus injures the heart, probably by either attacking it directly or causing a cytokine storm that leads to myocyte apoptosis, according to a report from the Columbia University Division of Cardiology in New York.
Reports from China document patients presenting with palpitations and chest pain without the typical fever and cough.
The exact mechanism of injury is uncertain, but for now, “it appears that the incidence of fulminant myocarditis and profound cardiogenic shock is low; however, the rate of recovery and mode of treatment are yet to be determined,” wrote authors led by Kevin Clerkin, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia.
High-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) might be prognostic. In one Chinese study of hospitalized patients, median hs-cTnI levels were 2.5 pg/mL in survivors on day 4 of symptoms and did not change significantly during follow-up. Among people who died, day 4 hs-cTnI was 8.8 pg/mL and climbed to 290.6 pg/mL by day 22.
“The rise in hs-cTnI tracks with other inflammatory biomarkers ... raising the possibility that this reflects cytokine storm or secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis more than isolated myocardial injury,” Dr. Clerkin and colleagues wrote.
But there are also acute heart injury reports out of China, including one man who presented with chest pain and ST-segment elevation, but no coronary obstruction, and another who presented with fulminant myocarditis in addition to severe respiratory manifestations, but with no cardiac history.
Both had depressed left ventricular ejection fractions, enlarged left ventricles, and elevated cardiac biomarkers, and both responded to intravenous immunoglobulin and steroids, among other treatments.
Amid a surge of COVID-19 cases at Columbia, “we have seen both forms of cardiac presentations: those presenting with cardiac predominant symptoms (none have had true [ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions] yet, but most fall in the myopericarditis group), some of which have required mechanical circulatory support, and those who seem to have secondary myocardial injury with globally elevated inflammatory biomarkers (e.g., ferritin, interleukin-6, lactate dehydrogenase, hs-cTnI, and D-dimer),” Dr. Clerkin said in an interview.
“We are discussing each of these cases in a multidisciplinary fashion with our infectious disease, pulmonary, interventional cardiology, and cardiac surgery colleagues to try to make the best decision based on what we know and as our knowledge evolves,” he said.
The exact cardiac effect of COVID-19 is unknown for now, but it is known already that it rides along with cardiovascular issues. There’s a high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and diagnosed cardiovascular disease among patients, but it’s unclear at this point if it’s because the virus favors older people who happen to be more likely to have those problems or if it attacks people with those conditions preferentially.
It might be the latter. The virus that causes COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), invades cells through angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) 2 receptors, which are highly expressed in the heart.
That raises the question of whether ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers might help. However, “at this time, nearly all major societies have recommended against adding or stopping ... antagonists in this setting, unless done on clinical grounds independently of COVID-19, given the lack of evidence,” Dr. Clerkin and his colleagues wrote.
As for heart transplants, the current thinking is to continue them without changes in immunosuppression so long as recipients test negative and haven’t been around anyone who has tested positive for a month. If a donor had COVID-19, they should have been free of the virus by polymerase chain reaction for at least 14 days. The concern is that it might be in the donor heart.
If transplant patients come down with COVID-19, the “data to date [indicate that management] is supportive care and continuation of immunosuppression for mild COVID-19 with reduction of the antimetabolite (mycophenolate or azathioprine), and further treatment based on disease severity and drug availability. Notably, one potential treatment option for COVID-19 is protease inhibitors,” the authors said, but it’s important to remember that they will increase the levels of cyclosporine, tacrolimus, and other calcineurin inhibitor transplant drugs.
At Columbia, “our processes have been adjusted” for heart transplants. “For instance, non-urgent testing (pre- and post-transplant) has been tabled, we have predominantly shifted to noninvasive screening for rejection, and each potential transplant requires more scrutiny for urgency, donor screening/risk for COVID-19, and perioperative management,” Dr. Clerkin said in the interview.
A study out of Wuhan, China, the outbreak epicenter, was reassuring. It found that routine prevention efforts were enough to protect heart transplant patients.
There was no funding, and the authors had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Clerkin KJ et al. Circulation. 2020 Mar 21. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.046941
In about 7% of people with confirmed novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and 22% of the critically ill, the virus injures the heart, probably by either attacking it directly or causing a cytokine storm that leads to myocyte apoptosis, according to a report from the Columbia University Division of Cardiology in New York.
Reports from China document patients presenting with palpitations and chest pain without the typical fever and cough.
The exact mechanism of injury is uncertain, but for now, “it appears that the incidence of fulminant myocarditis and profound cardiogenic shock is low; however, the rate of recovery and mode of treatment are yet to be determined,” wrote authors led by Kevin Clerkin, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia.
High-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) might be prognostic. In one Chinese study of hospitalized patients, median hs-cTnI levels were 2.5 pg/mL in survivors on day 4 of symptoms and did not change significantly during follow-up. Among people who died, day 4 hs-cTnI was 8.8 pg/mL and climbed to 290.6 pg/mL by day 22.
“The rise in hs-cTnI tracks with other inflammatory biomarkers ... raising the possibility that this reflects cytokine storm or secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis more than isolated myocardial injury,” Dr. Clerkin and colleagues wrote.
But there are also acute heart injury reports out of China, including one man who presented with chest pain and ST-segment elevation, but no coronary obstruction, and another who presented with fulminant myocarditis in addition to severe respiratory manifestations, but with no cardiac history.
Both had depressed left ventricular ejection fractions, enlarged left ventricles, and elevated cardiac biomarkers, and both responded to intravenous immunoglobulin and steroids, among other treatments.
Amid a surge of COVID-19 cases at Columbia, “we have seen both forms of cardiac presentations: those presenting with cardiac predominant symptoms (none have had true [ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions] yet, but most fall in the myopericarditis group), some of which have required mechanical circulatory support, and those who seem to have secondary myocardial injury with globally elevated inflammatory biomarkers (e.g., ferritin, interleukin-6, lactate dehydrogenase, hs-cTnI, and D-dimer),” Dr. Clerkin said in an interview.
“We are discussing each of these cases in a multidisciplinary fashion with our infectious disease, pulmonary, interventional cardiology, and cardiac surgery colleagues to try to make the best decision based on what we know and as our knowledge evolves,” he said.
The exact cardiac effect of COVID-19 is unknown for now, but it is known already that it rides along with cardiovascular issues. There’s a high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and diagnosed cardiovascular disease among patients, but it’s unclear at this point if it’s because the virus favors older people who happen to be more likely to have those problems or if it attacks people with those conditions preferentially.
It might be the latter. The virus that causes COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), invades cells through angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) 2 receptors, which are highly expressed in the heart.
That raises the question of whether ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers might help. However, “at this time, nearly all major societies have recommended against adding or stopping ... antagonists in this setting, unless done on clinical grounds independently of COVID-19, given the lack of evidence,” Dr. Clerkin and his colleagues wrote.
As for heart transplants, the current thinking is to continue them without changes in immunosuppression so long as recipients test negative and haven’t been around anyone who has tested positive for a month. If a donor had COVID-19, they should have been free of the virus by polymerase chain reaction for at least 14 days. The concern is that it might be in the donor heart.
If transplant patients come down with COVID-19, the “data to date [indicate that management] is supportive care and continuation of immunosuppression for mild COVID-19 with reduction of the antimetabolite (mycophenolate or azathioprine), and further treatment based on disease severity and drug availability. Notably, one potential treatment option for COVID-19 is protease inhibitors,” the authors said, but it’s important to remember that they will increase the levels of cyclosporine, tacrolimus, and other calcineurin inhibitor transplant drugs.
At Columbia, “our processes have been adjusted” for heart transplants. “For instance, non-urgent testing (pre- and post-transplant) has been tabled, we have predominantly shifted to noninvasive screening for rejection, and each potential transplant requires more scrutiny for urgency, donor screening/risk for COVID-19, and perioperative management,” Dr. Clerkin said in the interview.
A study out of Wuhan, China, the outbreak epicenter, was reassuring. It found that routine prevention efforts were enough to protect heart transplant patients.
There was no funding, and the authors had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Clerkin KJ et al. Circulation. 2020 Mar 21. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.046941
In about 7% of people with confirmed novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and 22% of the critically ill, the virus injures the heart, probably by either attacking it directly or causing a cytokine storm that leads to myocyte apoptosis, according to a report from the Columbia University Division of Cardiology in New York.
Reports from China document patients presenting with palpitations and chest pain without the typical fever and cough.
The exact mechanism of injury is uncertain, but for now, “it appears that the incidence of fulminant myocarditis and profound cardiogenic shock is low; however, the rate of recovery and mode of treatment are yet to be determined,” wrote authors led by Kevin Clerkin, MD, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Columbia.
High-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (hs-cTnI) might be prognostic. In one Chinese study of hospitalized patients, median hs-cTnI levels were 2.5 pg/mL in survivors on day 4 of symptoms and did not change significantly during follow-up. Among people who died, day 4 hs-cTnI was 8.8 pg/mL and climbed to 290.6 pg/mL by day 22.
“The rise in hs-cTnI tracks with other inflammatory biomarkers ... raising the possibility that this reflects cytokine storm or secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis more than isolated myocardial injury,” Dr. Clerkin and colleagues wrote.
But there are also acute heart injury reports out of China, including one man who presented with chest pain and ST-segment elevation, but no coronary obstruction, and another who presented with fulminant myocarditis in addition to severe respiratory manifestations, but with no cardiac history.
Both had depressed left ventricular ejection fractions, enlarged left ventricles, and elevated cardiac biomarkers, and both responded to intravenous immunoglobulin and steroids, among other treatments.
Amid a surge of COVID-19 cases at Columbia, “we have seen both forms of cardiac presentations: those presenting with cardiac predominant symptoms (none have had true [ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions] yet, but most fall in the myopericarditis group), some of which have required mechanical circulatory support, and those who seem to have secondary myocardial injury with globally elevated inflammatory biomarkers (e.g., ferritin, interleukin-6, lactate dehydrogenase, hs-cTnI, and D-dimer),” Dr. Clerkin said in an interview.
“We are discussing each of these cases in a multidisciplinary fashion with our infectious disease, pulmonary, interventional cardiology, and cardiac surgery colleagues to try to make the best decision based on what we know and as our knowledge evolves,” he said.
The exact cardiac effect of COVID-19 is unknown for now, but it is known already that it rides along with cardiovascular issues. There’s a high prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and diagnosed cardiovascular disease among patients, but it’s unclear at this point if it’s because the virus favors older people who happen to be more likely to have those problems or if it attacks people with those conditions preferentially.
It might be the latter. The virus that causes COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), invades cells through angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) 2 receptors, which are highly expressed in the heart.
That raises the question of whether ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers might help. However, “at this time, nearly all major societies have recommended against adding or stopping ... antagonists in this setting, unless done on clinical grounds independently of COVID-19, given the lack of evidence,” Dr. Clerkin and his colleagues wrote.
As for heart transplants, the current thinking is to continue them without changes in immunosuppression so long as recipients test negative and haven’t been around anyone who has tested positive for a month. If a donor had COVID-19, they should have been free of the virus by polymerase chain reaction for at least 14 days. The concern is that it might be in the donor heart.
If transplant patients come down with COVID-19, the “data to date [indicate that management] is supportive care and continuation of immunosuppression for mild COVID-19 with reduction of the antimetabolite (mycophenolate or azathioprine), and further treatment based on disease severity and drug availability. Notably, one potential treatment option for COVID-19 is protease inhibitors,” the authors said, but it’s important to remember that they will increase the levels of cyclosporine, tacrolimus, and other calcineurin inhibitor transplant drugs.
At Columbia, “our processes have been adjusted” for heart transplants. “For instance, non-urgent testing (pre- and post-transplant) has been tabled, we have predominantly shifted to noninvasive screening for rejection, and each potential transplant requires more scrutiny for urgency, donor screening/risk for COVID-19, and perioperative management,” Dr. Clerkin said in the interview.
A study out of Wuhan, China, the outbreak epicenter, was reassuring. It found that routine prevention efforts were enough to protect heart transplant patients.
There was no funding, and the authors had no disclosures.
SOURCE: Clerkin KJ et al. Circulation. 2020 Mar 21. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.120.046941
FROM CIRCULATION
Psychiatrists deemed ‘essential’ in time of COVID-19
New American Psychiatric Association poll shows depth of anxiety
The coronavirus pandemic weighs heavily on psychiatric patients with conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD. Meanwhile, a national poll released March 25 by the American Psychiatric Association shows that almost half of all Americans are anxious about contracting COVID-19 and 40% are anxious about becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus. In light of stressors on patients and nonpatients alike, mental health professionals have a key role in helping to alleviate suffering tied to the public health crisis, according to psychiatrists from across the country.
“There’s so much we can do to help people put order on this chaos,” said Shaili Jain, MD, section chief of outpatient mental health with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto (Calif.) Health Care System, in an interview. “We are essential workers in this time.”
Dr. Jain, who specializes in treating PTSD, said those patients are especially vulnerable to the stress and disruptions spawned by the pandemic. “When you go to the grocery store and there’s no food, that can be triggering for people who survived situations with a feeling of calamity or panic,” she said. “People are reporting worsening of nightmares and spontaneous panic attacks after having been stable with symptoms for many months. These are the kinds of stories that are starting to filter through.”
To make things even more difficult, she said, shelter-in-place orders are preventing patients from taking advantage of healthy coping strategies, such as working out at the gym or going to support groups. “We have an invaluable role to play in trying to prevent long-term consequences by going into problem-solving modes with patients.” Dr. Jain offered several tips that might help patients who are suffering:
- Use technology to stay in touch with support communities and boost self-care. “How can you be flexible with FaceTime, Skype, or phone even if you might not be able to have that face-to-face time? What are you doing to double down on your efforts at self-care – listening to music, reading, daily meditation, or walks? Double down on what you can do to prevent anxiety and stress levels from building up.”
- Take breaks from the news, which can contribute to hypervigilance and disrupted sleep. “I’m seeing that people are going down these rabbit holes of having the news or social media on 24/7,” Dr. Jain said. “You have to stay informed. But you need to pick trusted news sources and have chunks of time that are free of coronavirus coverage.” Understand that life is going to be difficult for a while. “We’re doing a lot of reassurance and education,” she said, “helping people to know and accept that the next few days, weeks, and months are going to be stressful.”
Dr. Jain cautioned colleagues, however, that “there will be a tsunami” of mental illness when the coronavirus crisis lifts. She is especially concerned about patient populations that are socioeconomically disadvantaged already and how their lives with be affected by lost wages, unemployment, and business failures. “Medical professionals will see the consequences of this in the days and weeks and months after the pandemic has settled,” she predicted.
The APA poll shows that, early in the crisis, more than 60% of people are anxious about family and loved ones contracting COVID-19.
Maintaining ‘reflective space’ essential
At the Austen Riggs Center, a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Stockbridge, Mass., staff and patients are adjusting to new rules that aim to prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus. “Social distancing requirements are having a huge impact,” said Eric M. Plakun, MD, medical director and CEO of Austen Riggs, in an interview. “You can’t have groups in the same way; you can’t have families come in for a family meeting; you can’t have quite the same the freedom to come and go. A lot of management issues are being addressed, but it is crucial also to maintain the ‘reflective space’ essential to do the kind of clinical work we do.” One approach, he said, is virtual meetings with colleagues that address on-the-job management issues, but also leave a space for how staff members are feeling.
“It’s easy to get into crisis-response mode,” he said, “where you’re always managing but never leave a space to talk about vulnerability, helplessness, and fear.”
As the facility’s staff adjusts by embracing teleconference technology and adapting group meetings to the 6-feet-apart rule,
Dr. Plakun said he said, noting that patients have approached staff members to say they want to collaborate about changes. “That’s a credible offer we intend to accept.”
Still, communicating with patients as a whole about the coronavirus can be difficult. As Dr. Plakun noted, it’s now impossible to bring 75 people together into one room for a meeting. “If you have four to five smaller meetings, how do you maintain some congruence in the information that’s presented?”
Dr. Plakun suggested that colleagues find time to engage in the familiar, such as face-to-face clinical work. “That’s been the most reassuring and rewarding part of my day since it feels almost like normal,” he said.
Stocking up on medications
Jessica “Jessi” Gold, MD, MS, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, often treats college students. Asian students started to worry early in the pandemic, she said in an interview.
“At the beginning, there were a lot of concerns about the public’s view: ‘Did this come from China? Is it China’s fault?’ A lot of our students felt that if they coughed, and they were a white person, they’d be OK. But if they were Asian, everyone would wonder why they were in class and not at home. That got worse over time: the fear about – and anxiety from – stoking racism.”
Later, as classes began to be canceled, Dr. Gold started to see the psychological effects of disruption and uncertainty about the future. “This can lead people to feel like what they knew before is just not there anymore. This can obviously cause anxiety but also has the potential to cause depression.” Patients also might slip into overuse of alcohol and drugs, or they might engage in other kinds of harmful behavior. Eating disorders, for example, “are ways to have control when other things aren’t in control,” she said.
Dr. Gold pointed to research into the mental health after effects of quarantines, such as those imposed during the SARS outbreak. A review of 24 studies published this year found that most “reported negative psychological effects, including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. Some researchers have suggested long-lasting effects” (Lancet. 2020;395:912-20).
Dr. Gold is urging patients to recall the warning signs that alerted them to psychological downturns in the past: “Try to remember what those warning signs are and pay attention to whether you see them.” And, Dr. Gold said, she asks patients to think about what has helped them get better.
In some cases, she said, patients are already preparing themselves for experiencing mental distress by stocking up on medications. “Some people have a bottle of 10-20 pills that they only use in emergencies and keep as a kind of security blanket,” she said, and she’s seen some of them ask for refills. It seems they’ve either taken the pills recently or want to stash them just in case. This makes sense, since their anxiety is higher, she said.
Dr. Gold cautioned that psychiatrists need to be careful to not overextend themselves when they’re not treating patients. “It is easy to be therapist to friends, family, and colleagues,” she said, “but we need to take care of ourselves, too.”
Dr. Jain is author of “The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing From the Frontlines of PTSD Science” (New York: Harper, 2019). She has no other disclosures. Dr. Plakun and Dr. Gold reported no relevant disclosures.
New American Psychiatric Association poll shows depth of anxiety
New American Psychiatric Association poll shows depth of anxiety
The coronavirus pandemic weighs heavily on psychiatric patients with conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD. Meanwhile, a national poll released March 25 by the American Psychiatric Association shows that almost half of all Americans are anxious about contracting COVID-19 and 40% are anxious about becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus. In light of stressors on patients and nonpatients alike, mental health professionals have a key role in helping to alleviate suffering tied to the public health crisis, according to psychiatrists from across the country.
“There’s so much we can do to help people put order on this chaos,” said Shaili Jain, MD, section chief of outpatient mental health with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto (Calif.) Health Care System, in an interview. “We are essential workers in this time.”
Dr. Jain, who specializes in treating PTSD, said those patients are especially vulnerable to the stress and disruptions spawned by the pandemic. “When you go to the grocery store and there’s no food, that can be triggering for people who survived situations with a feeling of calamity or panic,” she said. “People are reporting worsening of nightmares and spontaneous panic attacks after having been stable with symptoms for many months. These are the kinds of stories that are starting to filter through.”
To make things even more difficult, she said, shelter-in-place orders are preventing patients from taking advantage of healthy coping strategies, such as working out at the gym or going to support groups. “We have an invaluable role to play in trying to prevent long-term consequences by going into problem-solving modes with patients.” Dr. Jain offered several tips that might help patients who are suffering:
- Use technology to stay in touch with support communities and boost self-care. “How can you be flexible with FaceTime, Skype, or phone even if you might not be able to have that face-to-face time? What are you doing to double down on your efforts at self-care – listening to music, reading, daily meditation, or walks? Double down on what you can do to prevent anxiety and stress levels from building up.”
- Take breaks from the news, which can contribute to hypervigilance and disrupted sleep. “I’m seeing that people are going down these rabbit holes of having the news or social media on 24/7,” Dr. Jain said. “You have to stay informed. But you need to pick trusted news sources and have chunks of time that are free of coronavirus coverage.” Understand that life is going to be difficult for a while. “We’re doing a lot of reassurance and education,” she said, “helping people to know and accept that the next few days, weeks, and months are going to be stressful.”
Dr. Jain cautioned colleagues, however, that “there will be a tsunami” of mental illness when the coronavirus crisis lifts. She is especially concerned about patient populations that are socioeconomically disadvantaged already and how their lives with be affected by lost wages, unemployment, and business failures. “Medical professionals will see the consequences of this in the days and weeks and months after the pandemic has settled,” she predicted.
The APA poll shows that, early in the crisis, more than 60% of people are anxious about family and loved ones contracting COVID-19.
Maintaining ‘reflective space’ essential
At the Austen Riggs Center, a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Stockbridge, Mass., staff and patients are adjusting to new rules that aim to prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus. “Social distancing requirements are having a huge impact,” said Eric M. Plakun, MD, medical director and CEO of Austen Riggs, in an interview. “You can’t have groups in the same way; you can’t have families come in for a family meeting; you can’t have quite the same the freedom to come and go. A lot of management issues are being addressed, but it is crucial also to maintain the ‘reflective space’ essential to do the kind of clinical work we do.” One approach, he said, is virtual meetings with colleagues that address on-the-job management issues, but also leave a space for how staff members are feeling.
“It’s easy to get into crisis-response mode,” he said, “where you’re always managing but never leave a space to talk about vulnerability, helplessness, and fear.”
As the facility’s staff adjusts by embracing teleconference technology and adapting group meetings to the 6-feet-apart rule,
Dr. Plakun said he said, noting that patients have approached staff members to say they want to collaborate about changes. “That’s a credible offer we intend to accept.”
Still, communicating with patients as a whole about the coronavirus can be difficult. As Dr. Plakun noted, it’s now impossible to bring 75 people together into one room for a meeting. “If you have four to five smaller meetings, how do you maintain some congruence in the information that’s presented?”
Dr. Plakun suggested that colleagues find time to engage in the familiar, such as face-to-face clinical work. “That’s been the most reassuring and rewarding part of my day since it feels almost like normal,” he said.
Stocking up on medications
Jessica “Jessi” Gold, MD, MS, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, often treats college students. Asian students started to worry early in the pandemic, she said in an interview.
“At the beginning, there were a lot of concerns about the public’s view: ‘Did this come from China? Is it China’s fault?’ A lot of our students felt that if they coughed, and they were a white person, they’d be OK. But if they were Asian, everyone would wonder why they were in class and not at home. That got worse over time: the fear about – and anxiety from – stoking racism.”
Later, as classes began to be canceled, Dr. Gold started to see the psychological effects of disruption and uncertainty about the future. “This can lead people to feel like what they knew before is just not there anymore. This can obviously cause anxiety but also has the potential to cause depression.” Patients also might slip into overuse of alcohol and drugs, or they might engage in other kinds of harmful behavior. Eating disorders, for example, “are ways to have control when other things aren’t in control,” she said.
Dr. Gold pointed to research into the mental health after effects of quarantines, such as those imposed during the SARS outbreak. A review of 24 studies published this year found that most “reported negative psychological effects, including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. Some researchers have suggested long-lasting effects” (Lancet. 2020;395:912-20).
Dr. Gold is urging patients to recall the warning signs that alerted them to psychological downturns in the past: “Try to remember what those warning signs are and pay attention to whether you see them.” And, Dr. Gold said, she asks patients to think about what has helped them get better.
In some cases, she said, patients are already preparing themselves for experiencing mental distress by stocking up on medications. “Some people have a bottle of 10-20 pills that they only use in emergencies and keep as a kind of security blanket,” she said, and she’s seen some of them ask for refills. It seems they’ve either taken the pills recently or want to stash them just in case. This makes sense, since their anxiety is higher, she said.
Dr. Gold cautioned that psychiatrists need to be careful to not overextend themselves when they’re not treating patients. “It is easy to be therapist to friends, family, and colleagues,” she said, “but we need to take care of ourselves, too.”
Dr. Jain is author of “The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing From the Frontlines of PTSD Science” (New York: Harper, 2019). She has no other disclosures. Dr. Plakun and Dr. Gold reported no relevant disclosures.
The coronavirus pandemic weighs heavily on psychiatric patients with conditions such as anxiety, depression and PTSD. Meanwhile, a national poll released March 25 by the American Psychiatric Association shows that almost half of all Americans are anxious about contracting COVID-19 and 40% are anxious about becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus. In light of stressors on patients and nonpatients alike, mental health professionals have a key role in helping to alleviate suffering tied to the public health crisis, according to psychiatrists from across the country.
“There’s so much we can do to help people put order on this chaos,” said Shaili Jain, MD, section chief of outpatient mental health with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto (Calif.) Health Care System, in an interview. “We are essential workers in this time.”
Dr. Jain, who specializes in treating PTSD, said those patients are especially vulnerable to the stress and disruptions spawned by the pandemic. “When you go to the grocery store and there’s no food, that can be triggering for people who survived situations with a feeling of calamity or panic,” she said. “People are reporting worsening of nightmares and spontaneous panic attacks after having been stable with symptoms for many months. These are the kinds of stories that are starting to filter through.”
To make things even more difficult, she said, shelter-in-place orders are preventing patients from taking advantage of healthy coping strategies, such as working out at the gym or going to support groups. “We have an invaluable role to play in trying to prevent long-term consequences by going into problem-solving modes with patients.” Dr. Jain offered several tips that might help patients who are suffering:
- Use technology to stay in touch with support communities and boost self-care. “How can you be flexible with FaceTime, Skype, or phone even if you might not be able to have that face-to-face time? What are you doing to double down on your efforts at self-care – listening to music, reading, daily meditation, or walks? Double down on what you can do to prevent anxiety and stress levels from building up.”
- Take breaks from the news, which can contribute to hypervigilance and disrupted sleep. “I’m seeing that people are going down these rabbit holes of having the news or social media on 24/7,” Dr. Jain said. “You have to stay informed. But you need to pick trusted news sources and have chunks of time that are free of coronavirus coverage.” Understand that life is going to be difficult for a while. “We’re doing a lot of reassurance and education,” she said, “helping people to know and accept that the next few days, weeks, and months are going to be stressful.”
Dr. Jain cautioned colleagues, however, that “there will be a tsunami” of mental illness when the coronavirus crisis lifts. She is especially concerned about patient populations that are socioeconomically disadvantaged already and how their lives with be affected by lost wages, unemployment, and business failures. “Medical professionals will see the consequences of this in the days and weeks and months after the pandemic has settled,” she predicted.
The APA poll shows that, early in the crisis, more than 60% of people are anxious about family and loved ones contracting COVID-19.
Maintaining ‘reflective space’ essential
At the Austen Riggs Center, a psychiatric residential treatment facility in Stockbridge, Mass., staff and patients are adjusting to new rules that aim to prevent transmission of the novel coronavirus. “Social distancing requirements are having a huge impact,” said Eric M. Plakun, MD, medical director and CEO of Austen Riggs, in an interview. “You can’t have groups in the same way; you can’t have families come in for a family meeting; you can’t have quite the same the freedom to come and go. A lot of management issues are being addressed, but it is crucial also to maintain the ‘reflective space’ essential to do the kind of clinical work we do.” One approach, he said, is virtual meetings with colleagues that address on-the-job management issues, but also leave a space for how staff members are feeling.
“It’s easy to get into crisis-response mode,” he said, “where you’re always managing but never leave a space to talk about vulnerability, helplessness, and fear.”
As the facility’s staff adjusts by embracing teleconference technology and adapting group meetings to the 6-feet-apart rule,
Dr. Plakun said he said, noting that patients have approached staff members to say they want to collaborate about changes. “That’s a credible offer we intend to accept.”
Still, communicating with patients as a whole about the coronavirus can be difficult. As Dr. Plakun noted, it’s now impossible to bring 75 people together into one room for a meeting. “If you have four to five smaller meetings, how do you maintain some congruence in the information that’s presented?”
Dr. Plakun suggested that colleagues find time to engage in the familiar, such as face-to-face clinical work. “That’s been the most reassuring and rewarding part of my day since it feels almost like normal,” he said.
Stocking up on medications
Jessica “Jessi” Gold, MD, MS, an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, often treats college students. Asian students started to worry early in the pandemic, she said in an interview.
“At the beginning, there were a lot of concerns about the public’s view: ‘Did this come from China? Is it China’s fault?’ A lot of our students felt that if they coughed, and they were a white person, they’d be OK. But if they were Asian, everyone would wonder why they were in class and not at home. That got worse over time: the fear about – and anxiety from – stoking racism.”
Later, as classes began to be canceled, Dr. Gold started to see the psychological effects of disruption and uncertainty about the future. “This can lead people to feel like what they knew before is just not there anymore. This can obviously cause anxiety but also has the potential to cause depression.” Patients also might slip into overuse of alcohol and drugs, or they might engage in other kinds of harmful behavior. Eating disorders, for example, “are ways to have control when other things aren’t in control,” she said.
Dr. Gold pointed to research into the mental health after effects of quarantines, such as those imposed during the SARS outbreak. A review of 24 studies published this year found that most “reported negative psychological effects, including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. Some researchers have suggested long-lasting effects” (Lancet. 2020;395:912-20).
Dr. Gold is urging patients to recall the warning signs that alerted them to psychological downturns in the past: “Try to remember what those warning signs are and pay attention to whether you see them.” And, Dr. Gold said, she asks patients to think about what has helped them get better.
In some cases, she said, patients are already preparing themselves for experiencing mental distress by stocking up on medications. “Some people have a bottle of 10-20 pills that they only use in emergencies and keep as a kind of security blanket,” she said, and she’s seen some of them ask for refills. It seems they’ve either taken the pills recently or want to stash them just in case. This makes sense, since their anxiety is higher, she said.
Dr. Gold cautioned that psychiatrists need to be careful to not overextend themselves when they’re not treating patients. “It is easy to be therapist to friends, family, and colleagues,” she said, “but we need to take care of ourselves, too.”
Dr. Jain is author of “The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing From the Frontlines of PTSD Science” (New York: Harper, 2019). She has no other disclosures. Dr. Plakun and Dr. Gold reported no relevant disclosures.
COVID-19 shifts telehealth to the center of cardiology
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a recent telehealth webinar, Ami Bhatt, MD, director of the adult congenital heart disease program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said they’ve gone from seeing 400 patients a day in their clinic to fewer than 40 and are trying to push that number even lower and use virtual care as much as possible.
“The reason is we are having to send home physicians who are exposed and it’s cutting into our workforce very quickly. So the more people you could have at home doing work virtually is important because you’re going to need to call them in [during] the next couple of weeks,” she said. “And our PPE [personal protective equipment] is running low. So if we can afford to not have someone come in the office and not wear a mask because they had a cough, that’s a mask that can be used by someone performing CPR in an ICU.”
The hospital also adopted a train-the-trainer method to bring its existing telehealth program to cardiology, said Dr. Bhatt, who coauthored the American College of Cardiology’s recent guidance on establishing telehealth in the cardiology clinic.
“We find that sending people tip sheets and PowerPoints in addition to everything that is happening ... is too much,” Dr. Bhatt observed. “So actually holding your friend’s hand and walking them through it once you’ve learned how to do it has been really great in terms of adoption. Otherwise, everyone would fall back on phone, which is OK for now, but we need to establish a long-term plan.”
During the same March 20 webinar, David Konur, CEO of the Cardiovascular Institute of the South, Houma, La., said they began doing telecardiology more than 5 years ago and now do about 30,000 “patient touches” a month with 24/7 access.
“This is certainly an unprecedented time,” he said. “COVID-19 is shining a very bright light on the barriers that exist in health care, as well as the friction that exists to accessing care for all of our patients.”
New mandates
A new Food and Drug Administration policy, temporarily relaxing prior guidance on certain connected remote monitoring devices such as ECGs and cardiac monitors, is part of a shifting landscape to reduce barriers to telehealth during the ongoing pandemic. The increased flexibility may increase access to important patient physiological data, while eliminating unnecessary patient contact and easing the burden on healthcare facilities and providers, the agency said in the new guidance, issued March 20.
As such, the FDA “does not intend to object to limited modifications to the indications, claims, functionality, or hardware or software of FDA-cleared noninvasive remote monitoring devices that are used to support patient monitoring.”
Modifications could include the addition of monitoring statements for patients with COVID-19 or coexisting conditions such as hypertension and heart failure; a change to the indications or claims related to home use of devices previously cleared for use only in health care settings; and changes to hardware or software to increase remote monitoring capability. The approved devices listed in the guidance are clinical electronic thermometers, ECGs, cardiac monitors, ECG software for over-the-counter use, pulse oximetry, noninvasive blood pressure monitors, respiratory rate/breathing frequency monitors, and electronic stethoscopes.
The FDA policy comes just days after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded telehealth coverage to Medicare beneficiaries and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services said it would not penalize health care providers for using such non–HIPAA compliant third-party apps as Skype or Google Hangouts video. The HHS also signaled that physicians would be allowed to practice across state lines during the COVID-19 crisis.
“All these mandates have come in a time of desperation where we’re doing the best that we can to provide for patients and keep them safe,” Eugenia Gianos, MD, system director of cardiovascular prevention at Northwell Health and director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, said in an interview. “Realistically, the whole digital realm has a lot of promise for our patients.” She noted that telehealth programs are still being developed for the department, but that office visits have been purposely scaled back by more than 75% to protect patients as well as health care providers. “In times of need, the most promising technologies we have, have to come to the forefront,” Dr. Gianos said. “So using the data from the home – whether they have a blood pressure cuff or something that tracks their heart rate or their weight – when we don’t otherwise have data, is of great value.”
Andrew M. Freeman, MD, director of clinical cardiology and operations at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, said “in the current situation, telehealth is the most viable option because it keeps patients safe and physicians safe. So it wouldn’t surprise me if every institution in the country, if not worldwide, is very rapidly pursuing this kind of approach.”
Exactly how many programs or cardiologists were already using telehealth is impossible to say, although the ACC is planning to survey its members on their practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted.
The situation is so fluid that ACC is already revising its March 13 telehealth guidance to reflect the recent policy changes. Another document is being prepared to provide physicians with a template for the telehealth space, said Dr. Freeman, who coauthored the telehealth guidance and also serves on the ACC’s Innovation Leadership Council.
The new FDA policy allowing greater flexibility on remote monitoring devices is somewhat “vaguely worded,” Dr. Freeman noted, but highlights the ability of existing technology to provide essential patient data from home. “I think as we add adjuncts to the things we’re used to in the normal face-to-face visit, it’s going to make the face-to-face visit less required,” he said.
Questions remain, however, on implementing telehealth for new patients and whether payers will follow HHS’s decision not to conduct audits to ensure a prior relationship existed. The potential for telehealth to reach across state lines also is being viewed cautiously until tested legally, Dr. Freeman observed.
“If there’s one blessing in this awful disease that we have received, is that it may really give the power to clinicians, hospital systems, and payers to make telehealth a true viable, sustainable solution for good care that’s readily available to folks,” he said.
Fast-tracked research
On March 24, the American Heart Association announced it is committing $2.5 million for fast-tracked research grants for projects than can turn around results within 9-12 months and focus on how this novel coronavirus affects heart and brain health.
Additional funding also will be made available to the AHA’s new Center for Health Technology & Innovation’s Strategically Focused Research Networks to develop rapid technology solutions to aid in dealing with the pandemic.
The rapid response grant is an “unprecedented but logical move for the organization in these extraordinary times,” AHA President Bob Harrington, MD, chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, said in a statement. “We are committed to quickly bringing together and supporting some of the brightest minds in research science and clinical care who are shovel ready with the laboratories, tools, and data resources to immediately begin work on addressing this emergent issue.”
Dr. Freeman and Dr. Bhatt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Harrington is on the editorial board for Medscape Cardiology.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a recent telehealth webinar, Ami Bhatt, MD, director of the adult congenital heart disease program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said they’ve gone from seeing 400 patients a day in their clinic to fewer than 40 and are trying to push that number even lower and use virtual care as much as possible.
“The reason is we are having to send home physicians who are exposed and it’s cutting into our workforce very quickly. So the more people you could have at home doing work virtually is important because you’re going to need to call them in [during] the next couple of weeks,” she said. “And our PPE [personal protective equipment] is running low. So if we can afford to not have someone come in the office and not wear a mask because they had a cough, that’s a mask that can be used by someone performing CPR in an ICU.”
The hospital also adopted a train-the-trainer method to bring its existing telehealth program to cardiology, said Dr. Bhatt, who coauthored the American College of Cardiology’s recent guidance on establishing telehealth in the cardiology clinic.
“We find that sending people tip sheets and PowerPoints in addition to everything that is happening ... is too much,” Dr. Bhatt observed. “So actually holding your friend’s hand and walking them through it once you’ve learned how to do it has been really great in terms of adoption. Otherwise, everyone would fall back on phone, which is OK for now, but we need to establish a long-term plan.”
During the same March 20 webinar, David Konur, CEO of the Cardiovascular Institute of the South, Houma, La., said they began doing telecardiology more than 5 years ago and now do about 30,000 “patient touches” a month with 24/7 access.
“This is certainly an unprecedented time,” he said. “COVID-19 is shining a very bright light on the barriers that exist in health care, as well as the friction that exists to accessing care for all of our patients.”
New mandates
A new Food and Drug Administration policy, temporarily relaxing prior guidance on certain connected remote monitoring devices such as ECGs and cardiac monitors, is part of a shifting landscape to reduce barriers to telehealth during the ongoing pandemic. The increased flexibility may increase access to important patient physiological data, while eliminating unnecessary patient contact and easing the burden on healthcare facilities and providers, the agency said in the new guidance, issued March 20.
As such, the FDA “does not intend to object to limited modifications to the indications, claims, functionality, or hardware or software of FDA-cleared noninvasive remote monitoring devices that are used to support patient monitoring.”
Modifications could include the addition of monitoring statements for patients with COVID-19 or coexisting conditions such as hypertension and heart failure; a change to the indications or claims related to home use of devices previously cleared for use only in health care settings; and changes to hardware or software to increase remote monitoring capability. The approved devices listed in the guidance are clinical electronic thermometers, ECGs, cardiac monitors, ECG software for over-the-counter use, pulse oximetry, noninvasive blood pressure monitors, respiratory rate/breathing frequency monitors, and electronic stethoscopes.
The FDA policy comes just days after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded telehealth coverage to Medicare beneficiaries and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services said it would not penalize health care providers for using such non–HIPAA compliant third-party apps as Skype or Google Hangouts video. The HHS also signaled that physicians would be allowed to practice across state lines during the COVID-19 crisis.
“All these mandates have come in a time of desperation where we’re doing the best that we can to provide for patients and keep them safe,” Eugenia Gianos, MD, system director of cardiovascular prevention at Northwell Health and director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, said in an interview. “Realistically, the whole digital realm has a lot of promise for our patients.” She noted that telehealth programs are still being developed for the department, but that office visits have been purposely scaled back by more than 75% to protect patients as well as health care providers. “In times of need, the most promising technologies we have, have to come to the forefront,” Dr. Gianos said. “So using the data from the home – whether they have a blood pressure cuff or something that tracks their heart rate or their weight – when we don’t otherwise have data, is of great value.”
Andrew M. Freeman, MD, director of clinical cardiology and operations at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, said “in the current situation, telehealth is the most viable option because it keeps patients safe and physicians safe. So it wouldn’t surprise me if every institution in the country, if not worldwide, is very rapidly pursuing this kind of approach.”
Exactly how many programs or cardiologists were already using telehealth is impossible to say, although the ACC is planning to survey its members on their practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted.
The situation is so fluid that ACC is already revising its March 13 telehealth guidance to reflect the recent policy changes. Another document is being prepared to provide physicians with a template for the telehealth space, said Dr. Freeman, who coauthored the telehealth guidance and also serves on the ACC’s Innovation Leadership Council.
The new FDA policy allowing greater flexibility on remote monitoring devices is somewhat “vaguely worded,” Dr. Freeman noted, but highlights the ability of existing technology to provide essential patient data from home. “I think as we add adjuncts to the things we’re used to in the normal face-to-face visit, it’s going to make the face-to-face visit less required,” he said.
Questions remain, however, on implementing telehealth for new patients and whether payers will follow HHS’s decision not to conduct audits to ensure a prior relationship existed. The potential for telehealth to reach across state lines also is being viewed cautiously until tested legally, Dr. Freeman observed.
“If there’s one blessing in this awful disease that we have received, is that it may really give the power to clinicians, hospital systems, and payers to make telehealth a true viable, sustainable solution for good care that’s readily available to folks,” he said.
Fast-tracked research
On March 24, the American Heart Association announced it is committing $2.5 million for fast-tracked research grants for projects than can turn around results within 9-12 months and focus on how this novel coronavirus affects heart and brain health.
Additional funding also will be made available to the AHA’s new Center for Health Technology & Innovation’s Strategically Focused Research Networks to develop rapid technology solutions to aid in dealing with the pandemic.
The rapid response grant is an “unprecedented but logical move for the organization in these extraordinary times,” AHA President Bob Harrington, MD, chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, said in a statement. “We are committed to quickly bringing together and supporting some of the brightest minds in research science and clinical care who are shovel ready with the laboratories, tools, and data resources to immediately begin work on addressing this emergent issue.”
Dr. Freeman and Dr. Bhatt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Harrington is on the editorial board for Medscape Cardiology.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a recent telehealth webinar, Ami Bhatt, MD, director of the adult congenital heart disease program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said they’ve gone from seeing 400 patients a day in their clinic to fewer than 40 and are trying to push that number even lower and use virtual care as much as possible.
“The reason is we are having to send home physicians who are exposed and it’s cutting into our workforce very quickly. So the more people you could have at home doing work virtually is important because you’re going to need to call them in [during] the next couple of weeks,” she said. “And our PPE [personal protective equipment] is running low. So if we can afford to not have someone come in the office and not wear a mask because they had a cough, that’s a mask that can be used by someone performing CPR in an ICU.”
The hospital also adopted a train-the-trainer method to bring its existing telehealth program to cardiology, said Dr. Bhatt, who coauthored the American College of Cardiology’s recent guidance on establishing telehealth in the cardiology clinic.
“We find that sending people tip sheets and PowerPoints in addition to everything that is happening ... is too much,” Dr. Bhatt observed. “So actually holding your friend’s hand and walking them through it once you’ve learned how to do it has been really great in terms of adoption. Otherwise, everyone would fall back on phone, which is OK for now, but we need to establish a long-term plan.”
During the same March 20 webinar, David Konur, CEO of the Cardiovascular Institute of the South, Houma, La., said they began doing telecardiology more than 5 years ago and now do about 30,000 “patient touches” a month with 24/7 access.
“This is certainly an unprecedented time,” he said. “COVID-19 is shining a very bright light on the barriers that exist in health care, as well as the friction that exists to accessing care for all of our patients.”
New mandates
A new Food and Drug Administration policy, temporarily relaxing prior guidance on certain connected remote monitoring devices such as ECGs and cardiac monitors, is part of a shifting landscape to reduce barriers to telehealth during the ongoing pandemic. The increased flexibility may increase access to important patient physiological data, while eliminating unnecessary patient contact and easing the burden on healthcare facilities and providers, the agency said in the new guidance, issued March 20.
As such, the FDA “does not intend to object to limited modifications to the indications, claims, functionality, or hardware or software of FDA-cleared noninvasive remote monitoring devices that are used to support patient monitoring.”
Modifications could include the addition of monitoring statements for patients with COVID-19 or coexisting conditions such as hypertension and heart failure; a change to the indications or claims related to home use of devices previously cleared for use only in health care settings; and changes to hardware or software to increase remote monitoring capability. The approved devices listed in the guidance are clinical electronic thermometers, ECGs, cardiac monitors, ECG software for over-the-counter use, pulse oximetry, noninvasive blood pressure monitors, respiratory rate/breathing frequency monitors, and electronic stethoscopes.
The FDA policy comes just days after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expanded telehealth coverage to Medicare beneficiaries and the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services said it would not penalize health care providers for using such non–HIPAA compliant third-party apps as Skype or Google Hangouts video. The HHS also signaled that physicians would be allowed to practice across state lines during the COVID-19 crisis.
“All these mandates have come in a time of desperation where we’re doing the best that we can to provide for patients and keep them safe,” Eugenia Gianos, MD, system director of cardiovascular prevention at Northwell Health and director of the Women’s Cardiovascular Center, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, said in an interview. “Realistically, the whole digital realm has a lot of promise for our patients.” She noted that telehealth programs are still being developed for the department, but that office visits have been purposely scaled back by more than 75% to protect patients as well as health care providers. “In times of need, the most promising technologies we have, have to come to the forefront,” Dr. Gianos said. “So using the data from the home – whether they have a blood pressure cuff or something that tracks their heart rate or their weight – when we don’t otherwise have data, is of great value.”
Andrew M. Freeman, MD, director of clinical cardiology and operations at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, said “in the current situation, telehealth is the most viable option because it keeps patients safe and physicians safe. So it wouldn’t surprise me if every institution in the country, if not worldwide, is very rapidly pursuing this kind of approach.”
Exactly how many programs or cardiologists were already using telehealth is impossible to say, although the ACC is planning to survey its members on their practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted.
The situation is so fluid that ACC is already revising its March 13 telehealth guidance to reflect the recent policy changes. Another document is being prepared to provide physicians with a template for the telehealth space, said Dr. Freeman, who coauthored the telehealth guidance and also serves on the ACC’s Innovation Leadership Council.
The new FDA policy allowing greater flexibility on remote monitoring devices is somewhat “vaguely worded,” Dr. Freeman noted, but highlights the ability of existing technology to provide essential patient data from home. “I think as we add adjuncts to the things we’re used to in the normal face-to-face visit, it’s going to make the face-to-face visit less required,” he said.
Questions remain, however, on implementing telehealth for new patients and whether payers will follow HHS’s decision not to conduct audits to ensure a prior relationship existed. The potential for telehealth to reach across state lines also is being viewed cautiously until tested legally, Dr. Freeman observed.
“If there’s one blessing in this awful disease that we have received, is that it may really give the power to clinicians, hospital systems, and payers to make telehealth a true viable, sustainable solution for good care that’s readily available to folks,” he said.
Fast-tracked research
On March 24, the American Heart Association announced it is committing $2.5 million for fast-tracked research grants for projects than can turn around results within 9-12 months and focus on how this novel coronavirus affects heart and brain health.
Additional funding also will be made available to the AHA’s new Center for Health Technology & Innovation’s Strategically Focused Research Networks to develop rapid technology solutions to aid in dealing with the pandemic.
The rapid response grant is an “unprecedented but logical move for the organization in these extraordinary times,” AHA President Bob Harrington, MD, chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, said in a statement. “We are committed to quickly bringing together and supporting some of the brightest minds in research science and clinical care who are shovel ready with the laboratories, tools, and data resources to immediately begin work on addressing this emergent issue.”
Dr. Freeman and Dr. Bhatt have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Harrington is on the editorial board for Medscape Cardiology.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com
Is COVID-19 leading to a mental illness pandemic?
People living through this crisis are experiencing trauma
We are in the midst of an epidemic and possibly pandemic of anxiety and distress. The worry that folks have about themselves, families, finances, and work is overwhelming for millions.
I speak with people who report periods of racing thoughts jumping back in time and thinking of roads not taken. They also talk about their thoughts jumping forward with life plans of what they’ll do to change their lives in the future – if they survive COVID-19.
that is well-controlled with care (and even without care). Those people are suffering even more. Meanwhile, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder that had been under control appear to have worsened with the added stress.
Social distancing has disrupted our everyday routines. For many, there is no work, no spending time with people we care about, no going to movies or shows, no doing discretionary shopping, no going to school. Parents with children at home report frustration about balancing working from home with completing home-schooling packets. Physicians on the front lines of this unprecedented time report not having the proper protective equipment and worrying about the possibility of exposing their families to SARS-CoV-2.
We hear stories about the illness and even deaths of some young and middle-aged people with no underlying conditions, not to mention the loss of older adults. People are bursting into tears, and becoming easily frustrated and angry. Add in nightmares, ongoing anxiety states, insomnia, and decreased concentration.
We are seeing news reports of people stocking up on guns and ammunition and a case of one taking – and dying from – nonpharmaceutical grade chloroquine in an effort to prevent COVID-19.
I spoke with Juliana Tseng, PsyD, a clinical psychologist based in New York, and she said that the hype, half-truths, and false information from some outlets in the popular media are making things worse. Dr. Tseng added that the lack of coordination among local, state, and federal governments also is increasing fear and alienation.
As I see this period in time, my first thoughts are that we are witnessing a national epidemic of trauma. Specifically, what we have here is a clinical picture of PTSD.
PTSD is defined clearly as a traumatic disorder with a real or perceived fracture with life. Isolation (which we are creating as a way to “flatten the curve” or slow the spread of COVID-19), although that strategy is in our best personal and public health interests, is both painful and stressful. Frustration, flashbacks of past life experiences plus flashbacks of being ill are reported in people I’ve spoken with. Avoidance, even though it is planned in this instance, is part of the PTSD complex.
What can we as mental health professionals do to help alleviate this suffering?
First, of course, we must listen to the scientific experts and the data – and tell people to do the same. Most experts will say that COVID-19 is a mild or moderate illness for the vast majority of people. We also must encourage people to observe precautions outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as distancing from people, hand washing, and avoiding those who are ill. Explain to people that, currently, there is no vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Treatment is mainly supportive, and some medication trials are being explored. However, we can empower people by helping them to develop skills aimed at increasing the ability to relax and focus on more positive aspects of life to break the chain of the stress and tension of anxiety as well as control the PTSD.
For more than 40 years, I have helped people master relaxation techniques and guided imagery. When taught properly, people are able to use these techniques on their own.
To begin, I teach people how to relax, using a simple three-point method:
- Get comfortable in a nice chair, and slowly count from one to three. At the count of one, do one thing: “roll your eyes up to the top of your head.”
- At the count of two, do two things, “close your lids on your eyes and take a deep breath.”
- At three, exhale slowly, relax your eyes, and concentrate on a restful feeling of floating.
- Do this for about 30 seconds to a minute.
- Count backward, from three to two to one and open your eyes.
The person will notice how nice and restful they will feel.
After that exercise, get the person to move to the graduate level and go beyond just relaxation. In the following exercise, people can go into a relaxed state by imagining a movie screen. Tell the person to do two things:
1. Look at the imagined movie screen and project on it any pleasant scene you wish; this is your screen. You will feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed. The person can do this one, two, three or whatever times a day. The exercise can last 1 minute or 5.
2. Incorporate the 1, 2, 3 relaxation described earlier, allowing yourself to float into this restful state and go to your movie screen. Now, on the screen, imagine a thick line down the center, and on the left side, project your worries and anxieties and fears. The idea is to see but not experience them. Then shift to the ride side of the screen, and again, visualize any pleasant scene you wish. Again, do this for 1 minute or 5 minutes, whatever works.
You will notice that the pleasant scene on the right will overcome the anxiety scene on the left, in that pleasantness, in most instances, overcomes anxiety. For many, these techniques have proved very useful – whether the problem is anxiety or fear – or both. In my experience, these techniques are a good beginning for controlling PTSD and successfully treating it.
We are in the midst of what could be the biggest public health crisis that America has faced since the 1918 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu. The lockdowns, quarantines, and the myriad of other disruptions can lead to alienation. In fact, it would be strange for us not to experience strong emotions under these extreme conditions. Life will get better! In the meantime, let’s encourage people to hope, pray, and use relaxation techniques and guided imagery approaches to help control anxiety, worry, stress, and issues related to PTSD. These approaches can give our minds and bodies periods of relaxation and recovery, and ultimately, they can calm our minds.
Dr. London is a practicing psychiatrist and has been a newspaper columnist for 35 years, specializing in and writing about short-term therapy, including cognitive-behavioral therapy and guided imagery. He is author of “Find Freedom Fast” (New York: Kettlehole Publishing, 2019). He has no conflicts of interest.
People living through this crisis are experiencing trauma
People living through this crisis are experiencing trauma
We are in the midst of an epidemic and possibly pandemic of anxiety and distress. The worry that folks have about themselves, families, finances, and work is overwhelming for millions.
I speak with people who report periods of racing thoughts jumping back in time and thinking of roads not taken. They also talk about their thoughts jumping forward with life plans of what they’ll do to change their lives in the future – if they survive COVID-19.
that is well-controlled with care (and even without care). Those people are suffering even more. Meanwhile, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder that had been under control appear to have worsened with the added stress.
Social distancing has disrupted our everyday routines. For many, there is no work, no spending time with people we care about, no going to movies or shows, no doing discretionary shopping, no going to school. Parents with children at home report frustration about balancing working from home with completing home-schooling packets. Physicians on the front lines of this unprecedented time report not having the proper protective equipment and worrying about the possibility of exposing their families to SARS-CoV-2.
We hear stories about the illness and even deaths of some young and middle-aged people with no underlying conditions, not to mention the loss of older adults. People are bursting into tears, and becoming easily frustrated and angry. Add in nightmares, ongoing anxiety states, insomnia, and decreased concentration.
We are seeing news reports of people stocking up on guns and ammunition and a case of one taking – and dying from – nonpharmaceutical grade chloroquine in an effort to prevent COVID-19.
I spoke with Juliana Tseng, PsyD, a clinical psychologist based in New York, and she said that the hype, half-truths, and false information from some outlets in the popular media are making things worse. Dr. Tseng added that the lack of coordination among local, state, and federal governments also is increasing fear and alienation.
As I see this period in time, my first thoughts are that we are witnessing a national epidemic of trauma. Specifically, what we have here is a clinical picture of PTSD.
PTSD is defined clearly as a traumatic disorder with a real or perceived fracture with life. Isolation (which we are creating as a way to “flatten the curve” or slow the spread of COVID-19), although that strategy is in our best personal and public health interests, is both painful and stressful. Frustration, flashbacks of past life experiences plus flashbacks of being ill are reported in people I’ve spoken with. Avoidance, even though it is planned in this instance, is part of the PTSD complex.
What can we as mental health professionals do to help alleviate this suffering?
First, of course, we must listen to the scientific experts and the data – and tell people to do the same. Most experts will say that COVID-19 is a mild or moderate illness for the vast majority of people. We also must encourage people to observe precautions outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as distancing from people, hand washing, and avoiding those who are ill. Explain to people that, currently, there is no vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Treatment is mainly supportive, and some medication trials are being explored. However, we can empower people by helping them to develop skills aimed at increasing the ability to relax and focus on more positive aspects of life to break the chain of the stress and tension of anxiety as well as control the PTSD.
For more than 40 years, I have helped people master relaxation techniques and guided imagery. When taught properly, people are able to use these techniques on their own.
To begin, I teach people how to relax, using a simple three-point method:
- Get comfortable in a nice chair, and slowly count from one to three. At the count of one, do one thing: “roll your eyes up to the top of your head.”
- At the count of two, do two things, “close your lids on your eyes and take a deep breath.”
- At three, exhale slowly, relax your eyes, and concentrate on a restful feeling of floating.
- Do this for about 30 seconds to a minute.
- Count backward, from three to two to one and open your eyes.
The person will notice how nice and restful they will feel.
After that exercise, get the person to move to the graduate level and go beyond just relaxation. In the following exercise, people can go into a relaxed state by imagining a movie screen. Tell the person to do two things:
1. Look at the imagined movie screen and project on it any pleasant scene you wish; this is your screen. You will feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed. The person can do this one, two, three or whatever times a day. The exercise can last 1 minute or 5.
2. Incorporate the 1, 2, 3 relaxation described earlier, allowing yourself to float into this restful state and go to your movie screen. Now, on the screen, imagine a thick line down the center, and on the left side, project your worries and anxieties and fears. The idea is to see but not experience them. Then shift to the ride side of the screen, and again, visualize any pleasant scene you wish. Again, do this for 1 minute or 5 minutes, whatever works.
You will notice that the pleasant scene on the right will overcome the anxiety scene on the left, in that pleasantness, in most instances, overcomes anxiety. For many, these techniques have proved very useful – whether the problem is anxiety or fear – or both. In my experience, these techniques are a good beginning for controlling PTSD and successfully treating it.
We are in the midst of what could be the biggest public health crisis that America has faced since the 1918 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu. The lockdowns, quarantines, and the myriad of other disruptions can lead to alienation. In fact, it would be strange for us not to experience strong emotions under these extreme conditions. Life will get better! In the meantime, let’s encourage people to hope, pray, and use relaxation techniques and guided imagery approaches to help control anxiety, worry, stress, and issues related to PTSD. These approaches can give our minds and bodies periods of relaxation and recovery, and ultimately, they can calm our minds.
Dr. London is a practicing psychiatrist and has been a newspaper columnist for 35 years, specializing in and writing about short-term therapy, including cognitive-behavioral therapy and guided imagery. He is author of “Find Freedom Fast” (New York: Kettlehole Publishing, 2019). He has no conflicts of interest.
We are in the midst of an epidemic and possibly pandemic of anxiety and distress. The worry that folks have about themselves, families, finances, and work is overwhelming for millions.
I speak with people who report periods of racing thoughts jumping back in time and thinking of roads not taken. They also talk about their thoughts jumping forward with life plans of what they’ll do to change their lives in the future – if they survive COVID-19.
that is well-controlled with care (and even without care). Those people are suffering even more. Meanwhile, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder that had been under control appear to have worsened with the added stress.
Social distancing has disrupted our everyday routines. For many, there is no work, no spending time with people we care about, no going to movies or shows, no doing discretionary shopping, no going to school. Parents with children at home report frustration about balancing working from home with completing home-schooling packets. Physicians on the front lines of this unprecedented time report not having the proper protective equipment and worrying about the possibility of exposing their families to SARS-CoV-2.
We hear stories about the illness and even deaths of some young and middle-aged people with no underlying conditions, not to mention the loss of older adults. People are bursting into tears, and becoming easily frustrated and angry. Add in nightmares, ongoing anxiety states, insomnia, and decreased concentration.
We are seeing news reports of people stocking up on guns and ammunition and a case of one taking – and dying from – nonpharmaceutical grade chloroquine in an effort to prevent COVID-19.
I spoke with Juliana Tseng, PsyD, a clinical psychologist based in New York, and she said that the hype, half-truths, and false information from some outlets in the popular media are making things worse. Dr. Tseng added that the lack of coordination among local, state, and federal governments also is increasing fear and alienation.
As I see this period in time, my first thoughts are that we are witnessing a national epidemic of trauma. Specifically, what we have here is a clinical picture of PTSD.
PTSD is defined clearly as a traumatic disorder with a real or perceived fracture with life. Isolation (which we are creating as a way to “flatten the curve” or slow the spread of COVID-19), although that strategy is in our best personal and public health interests, is both painful and stressful. Frustration, flashbacks of past life experiences plus flashbacks of being ill are reported in people I’ve spoken with. Avoidance, even though it is planned in this instance, is part of the PTSD complex.
What can we as mental health professionals do to help alleviate this suffering?
First, of course, we must listen to the scientific experts and the data – and tell people to do the same. Most experts will say that COVID-19 is a mild or moderate illness for the vast majority of people. We also must encourage people to observe precautions outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as distancing from people, hand washing, and avoiding those who are ill. Explain to people that, currently, there is no vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Treatment is mainly supportive, and some medication trials are being explored. However, we can empower people by helping them to develop skills aimed at increasing the ability to relax and focus on more positive aspects of life to break the chain of the stress and tension of anxiety as well as control the PTSD.
For more than 40 years, I have helped people master relaxation techniques and guided imagery. When taught properly, people are able to use these techniques on their own.
To begin, I teach people how to relax, using a simple three-point method:
- Get comfortable in a nice chair, and slowly count from one to three. At the count of one, do one thing: “roll your eyes up to the top of your head.”
- At the count of two, do two things, “close your lids on your eyes and take a deep breath.”
- At three, exhale slowly, relax your eyes, and concentrate on a restful feeling of floating.
- Do this for about 30 seconds to a minute.
- Count backward, from three to two to one and open your eyes.
The person will notice how nice and restful they will feel.
After that exercise, get the person to move to the graduate level and go beyond just relaxation. In the following exercise, people can go into a relaxed state by imagining a movie screen. Tell the person to do two things:
1. Look at the imagined movie screen and project on it any pleasant scene you wish; this is your screen. You will feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed. The person can do this one, two, three or whatever times a day. The exercise can last 1 minute or 5.
2. Incorporate the 1, 2, 3 relaxation described earlier, allowing yourself to float into this restful state and go to your movie screen. Now, on the screen, imagine a thick line down the center, and on the left side, project your worries and anxieties and fears. The idea is to see but not experience them. Then shift to the ride side of the screen, and again, visualize any pleasant scene you wish. Again, do this for 1 minute or 5 minutes, whatever works.
You will notice that the pleasant scene on the right will overcome the anxiety scene on the left, in that pleasantness, in most instances, overcomes anxiety. For many, these techniques have proved very useful – whether the problem is anxiety or fear – or both. In my experience, these techniques are a good beginning for controlling PTSD and successfully treating it.
We are in the midst of what could be the biggest public health crisis that America has faced since the 1918 pandemic, also known as the Spanish flu. The lockdowns, quarantines, and the myriad of other disruptions can lead to alienation. In fact, it would be strange for us not to experience strong emotions under these extreme conditions. Life will get better! In the meantime, let’s encourage people to hope, pray, and use relaxation techniques and guided imagery approaches to help control anxiety, worry, stress, and issues related to PTSD. These approaches can give our minds and bodies periods of relaxation and recovery, and ultimately, they can calm our minds.
Dr. London is a practicing psychiatrist and has been a newspaper columnist for 35 years, specializing in and writing about short-term therapy, including cognitive-behavioral therapy and guided imagery. He is author of “Find Freedom Fast” (New York: Kettlehole Publishing, 2019). He has no conflicts of interest.
How long is it safe to delay gynecologic cancer surgery?
As I write this column, there are more than 25,000 current cases of COVID-19 in the United States with an expected exponential rise in these numbers. Hospitals are issuing directives to cancel or postpone “elective” surgery to preserve the finite essential personal protective equipment (PPE), encourage social distancing, prevent exposure of at-risk patients within the hospital, and ensure bed and ventilator capacity for the impending surge in COVID-19 patients.
Many health systems have defined which surgeries they consider permissible, typically by using time parameters such as would not cause patient harm if not performed within 4 weeks, or 7 days, or 24 hours. This leaves surgeons in the unfamiliar position of rationing health care, a role with which, over the coming months, we may have to become increasingly comfortable. This is an enormous responsibility, the shift of resources between one population in need and another, and decisions should be based on data, not bias or hunch. We know that untreated cancer is life threatening, but there is a difference between untreated and delayed. What is a safe time to wait for gynecologic cancer surgery after diagnosis without negatively affecting survival from that cancer?
As I looked through my own upcoming surgical schedule, I sought guidance from the American College of Surgeons’ website, updated on March 17, 2020. In this site they tabulate an “Elective Surgery Acuity Scale” in which “most cancers” fit into tier 3a, which corresponds to high acuity surgery – “do not postpone.” This definition is fairly generalized and blunt; it does not account for the differences in cancers and occasional voluntary needs to postpone a patient’s cancer surgery for health optimization. There are limited data that measure the impact of surgical wait times on survival from gynecologic cancer. Most of this research is observational, and therefore, is influenced by confounders causing delay in surgery (e.g., comorbid conditions or socioeconomic factors that limit access to care). However, the current enforced delays are involuntary; driven by the system, not the patient; and access is universally restricted.
Endometrial cancer
Most data regarding outcomes and gynecologic cancer delay come from endometrial cancer. In 2016, Shalowitz et al. evaluated 182,000 endometrial cancer cases documented within the National Cancer Database (NCDB), which captures approximately 70% of cancer surgeries in the United States.1 They separated these patients into groups of low-grade (grade 1 and 2 endometrioid) and high-grade (grade 3 endometrioid and nonendometrioid) cancers, and evaluated the groups for their overall survival, stratified by the time period between diagnosis and surgery. Interestingly, those whose surgery was performed under 2 weeks from diagnosis had worse perioperative mortality and long-term survival. This seems to be a function of lack of medical optimization; low-volume, nonspecialized centers having less wait time; and the presentation of more advanced and symptomatic disease demanding a more urgent surgery. After those initial 2 weeks of worse outcomes, there was a period of stable outcomes and safety in waiting that extended up to 8 weeks for patients with low-grade cancers and up to 18 weeks for patients with high-grade cancers.
It may be counterintuitive to think that surgical delay affects patients with high-grade endometrial cancers less. These are more aggressive cancers, and there is patient and provider concern for metastatic spread with time elapsed. But an expedited surgery does not appear to be necessary for this group. The Shalowitz study demonstrated no risk for upstaging with surgical delay, meaning that advanced stage was not more likely to be identified in patients whose surgery was delayed, compared with those performed earlier. This observation suggests that the survival from high-grade endometrial cancers is largely determined by factors that cannot be controlled by the surgeon such as the stage at diagnosis, occult spread, and decreased responsiveness of the tumor to adjuvant therapy. In other words, fast-tracking these patients to surgery has limited influence on the outcomes for high-grade endometrial cancers.
For low-grade cancers, adverse outcomes were seen with a surgical delay of more than 8 weeks. But this may not have been caused by progression of disease (low-grade cancers also were not upstaged with delays), but rather may reflect that, in normal times, elective delays of more than 8 weeks are a function of necessary complex medical optimization of comorbidities (such as obesity-related disease). The survival that is measured by NCDB is not disease specific, and patients with comorbidities will be more likely to have impaired overall survival.
A systematic review of all papers that looked at endometrial cancer outcomes associated with surgical delay determined that it is reasonable to delay surgery for up to 8 weeks.2
Ovarian cancer
The data for ovarian cancer surgery is more limited. Most literature discusses the impact of delay in the time between surgery and the receipt of adjuvant chemotherapy, but there are limited data exploring how a delay in primary debulking negatively affects patients. This is perhaps because advanced ovarian cancer surgery rarely is delayed because of symptoms and apparent advanced stage at diagnosis. When a patient’s surgery does need to be voluntarily delayed, for example for medical optimization, there is the option of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in which surgery is performed after three or more cycles of chemotherapy. NACT has been shown in multiple studies to have noninferior cancer outcomes, compared with primary debulking surgery.3,4
Perhaps in this current environment in which access to operating rooms and supplies is rationed, we should consider offering more, or all, patients NACT? Hospital stays after primary cytoreductive surgeries are typically 3-7 days in length, and these patients are at a higher risk, compared with other gynecologic cancer surgeries, of ICU admission and blood transfusions, both limited resources in this current environment. The disadvantage of this approach is that, while chemotherapy can keep patients out of the hospital so that they can practice social distancing, this particular therapy adds to the immunocompromised population. However, even patients who undergo primary surgical cytoreductive surgery will need to rapidly transition to immunosuppressive cytotoxic therapy; therefore it is unlikely that this can be avoided entirely during this time.
Lower genital tract cancers
Surgery for patients with lower genital tract cancers – such as cervical and vulvar cancer – also can probably be safely delayed for a 4-week period, and possibly longer. A Canadian retrospective study looked collectively at cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers evaluating for disease progression associated with delay to surgery, using 28 days as a benchmark for delayed surgery.5 They found no significant increased progression associated with surgical delay greater than 28 days. This study evaluated progression of cancer and did not measure cancer survival, although it is unlikely we would see impaired survival without a significant increase in disease progression.
We also can look to outcomes from delayed radical hysterectomy for stage I cervical cancer in pregnancy to provided us with some data. A retrospective cohort study observed no difference in survival when 28 women with early-stage cervical cancer who were diagnosed in pregnancy (average wait time 20 weeks from diagnosis to treatment) were compared with the outcomes of 52 matched nonpregnant control patients (average wait time 8 weeks). Their survival was 89% versus 94% respectively (P = .08).6
Summary
Synthesizing this data, it appears that, in an environment of competing needs and resources, it is reasonable and safe to delay surgery for patients with gynecologic cancers for 4-6 weeks and potentially longer. This includes patients with high-grade endometrial cancers. Clearly, these decisions should be individualized to patients and different health systems. For example, a patient who presents with a cancer-associated life-threatening bowel obstruction or hemorrhage may need an immediate intervention, and communities minimally affected by the coronavirus pandemic may have more allowances for surgery. With respect to patient anxiety, most patients with cancer are keen to have surgery promptly, and breaking the news to them that their surgery may be delayed because of institutional and public health needs will be difficult. However, the data support that this is likely safe.
Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She had no relevant financial disclosures. Email Dr. Rossi at [email protected].
References
1. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):268 e1-68 e18.
2. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 2020;246:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2020.01.004.
3. N Engl J Med 2010;363(10):943-53.
4. Lancet 2015;386(9990):249-57.
5. J Obstet Gynaecol Can 2015;37(4):338-44.
6. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):276 e1-76 e6. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2016.10.034.
As I write this column, there are more than 25,000 current cases of COVID-19 in the United States with an expected exponential rise in these numbers. Hospitals are issuing directives to cancel or postpone “elective” surgery to preserve the finite essential personal protective equipment (PPE), encourage social distancing, prevent exposure of at-risk patients within the hospital, and ensure bed and ventilator capacity for the impending surge in COVID-19 patients.
Many health systems have defined which surgeries they consider permissible, typically by using time parameters such as would not cause patient harm if not performed within 4 weeks, or 7 days, or 24 hours. This leaves surgeons in the unfamiliar position of rationing health care, a role with which, over the coming months, we may have to become increasingly comfortable. This is an enormous responsibility, the shift of resources between one population in need and another, and decisions should be based on data, not bias or hunch. We know that untreated cancer is life threatening, but there is a difference between untreated and delayed. What is a safe time to wait for gynecologic cancer surgery after diagnosis without negatively affecting survival from that cancer?
As I looked through my own upcoming surgical schedule, I sought guidance from the American College of Surgeons’ website, updated on March 17, 2020. In this site they tabulate an “Elective Surgery Acuity Scale” in which “most cancers” fit into tier 3a, which corresponds to high acuity surgery – “do not postpone.” This definition is fairly generalized and blunt; it does not account for the differences in cancers and occasional voluntary needs to postpone a patient’s cancer surgery for health optimization. There are limited data that measure the impact of surgical wait times on survival from gynecologic cancer. Most of this research is observational, and therefore, is influenced by confounders causing delay in surgery (e.g., comorbid conditions or socioeconomic factors that limit access to care). However, the current enforced delays are involuntary; driven by the system, not the patient; and access is universally restricted.
Endometrial cancer
Most data regarding outcomes and gynecologic cancer delay come from endometrial cancer. In 2016, Shalowitz et al. evaluated 182,000 endometrial cancer cases documented within the National Cancer Database (NCDB), which captures approximately 70% of cancer surgeries in the United States.1 They separated these patients into groups of low-grade (grade 1 and 2 endometrioid) and high-grade (grade 3 endometrioid and nonendometrioid) cancers, and evaluated the groups for their overall survival, stratified by the time period between diagnosis and surgery. Interestingly, those whose surgery was performed under 2 weeks from diagnosis had worse perioperative mortality and long-term survival. This seems to be a function of lack of medical optimization; low-volume, nonspecialized centers having less wait time; and the presentation of more advanced and symptomatic disease demanding a more urgent surgery. After those initial 2 weeks of worse outcomes, there was a period of stable outcomes and safety in waiting that extended up to 8 weeks for patients with low-grade cancers and up to 18 weeks for patients with high-grade cancers.
It may be counterintuitive to think that surgical delay affects patients with high-grade endometrial cancers less. These are more aggressive cancers, and there is patient and provider concern for metastatic spread with time elapsed. But an expedited surgery does not appear to be necessary for this group. The Shalowitz study demonstrated no risk for upstaging with surgical delay, meaning that advanced stage was not more likely to be identified in patients whose surgery was delayed, compared with those performed earlier. This observation suggests that the survival from high-grade endometrial cancers is largely determined by factors that cannot be controlled by the surgeon such as the stage at diagnosis, occult spread, and decreased responsiveness of the tumor to adjuvant therapy. In other words, fast-tracking these patients to surgery has limited influence on the outcomes for high-grade endometrial cancers.
For low-grade cancers, adverse outcomes were seen with a surgical delay of more than 8 weeks. But this may not have been caused by progression of disease (low-grade cancers also were not upstaged with delays), but rather may reflect that, in normal times, elective delays of more than 8 weeks are a function of necessary complex medical optimization of comorbidities (such as obesity-related disease). The survival that is measured by NCDB is not disease specific, and patients with comorbidities will be more likely to have impaired overall survival.
A systematic review of all papers that looked at endometrial cancer outcomes associated with surgical delay determined that it is reasonable to delay surgery for up to 8 weeks.2
Ovarian cancer
The data for ovarian cancer surgery is more limited. Most literature discusses the impact of delay in the time between surgery and the receipt of adjuvant chemotherapy, but there are limited data exploring how a delay in primary debulking negatively affects patients. This is perhaps because advanced ovarian cancer surgery rarely is delayed because of symptoms and apparent advanced stage at diagnosis. When a patient’s surgery does need to be voluntarily delayed, for example for medical optimization, there is the option of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in which surgery is performed after three or more cycles of chemotherapy. NACT has been shown in multiple studies to have noninferior cancer outcomes, compared with primary debulking surgery.3,4
Perhaps in this current environment in which access to operating rooms and supplies is rationed, we should consider offering more, or all, patients NACT? Hospital stays after primary cytoreductive surgeries are typically 3-7 days in length, and these patients are at a higher risk, compared with other gynecologic cancer surgeries, of ICU admission and blood transfusions, both limited resources in this current environment. The disadvantage of this approach is that, while chemotherapy can keep patients out of the hospital so that they can practice social distancing, this particular therapy adds to the immunocompromised population. However, even patients who undergo primary surgical cytoreductive surgery will need to rapidly transition to immunosuppressive cytotoxic therapy; therefore it is unlikely that this can be avoided entirely during this time.
Lower genital tract cancers
Surgery for patients with lower genital tract cancers – such as cervical and vulvar cancer – also can probably be safely delayed for a 4-week period, and possibly longer. A Canadian retrospective study looked collectively at cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers evaluating for disease progression associated with delay to surgery, using 28 days as a benchmark for delayed surgery.5 They found no significant increased progression associated with surgical delay greater than 28 days. This study evaluated progression of cancer and did not measure cancer survival, although it is unlikely we would see impaired survival without a significant increase in disease progression.
We also can look to outcomes from delayed radical hysterectomy for stage I cervical cancer in pregnancy to provided us with some data. A retrospective cohort study observed no difference in survival when 28 women with early-stage cervical cancer who were diagnosed in pregnancy (average wait time 20 weeks from diagnosis to treatment) were compared with the outcomes of 52 matched nonpregnant control patients (average wait time 8 weeks). Their survival was 89% versus 94% respectively (P = .08).6
Summary
Synthesizing this data, it appears that, in an environment of competing needs and resources, it is reasonable and safe to delay surgery for patients with gynecologic cancers for 4-6 weeks and potentially longer. This includes patients with high-grade endometrial cancers. Clearly, these decisions should be individualized to patients and different health systems. For example, a patient who presents with a cancer-associated life-threatening bowel obstruction or hemorrhage may need an immediate intervention, and communities minimally affected by the coronavirus pandemic may have more allowances for surgery. With respect to patient anxiety, most patients with cancer are keen to have surgery promptly, and breaking the news to them that their surgery may be delayed because of institutional and public health needs will be difficult. However, the data support that this is likely safe.
Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She had no relevant financial disclosures. Email Dr. Rossi at [email protected].
References
1. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):268 e1-68 e18.
2. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 2020;246:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2020.01.004.
3. N Engl J Med 2010;363(10):943-53.
4. Lancet 2015;386(9990):249-57.
5. J Obstet Gynaecol Can 2015;37(4):338-44.
6. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):276 e1-76 e6. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2016.10.034.
As I write this column, there are more than 25,000 current cases of COVID-19 in the United States with an expected exponential rise in these numbers. Hospitals are issuing directives to cancel or postpone “elective” surgery to preserve the finite essential personal protective equipment (PPE), encourage social distancing, prevent exposure of at-risk patients within the hospital, and ensure bed and ventilator capacity for the impending surge in COVID-19 patients.
Many health systems have defined which surgeries they consider permissible, typically by using time parameters such as would not cause patient harm if not performed within 4 weeks, or 7 days, or 24 hours. This leaves surgeons in the unfamiliar position of rationing health care, a role with which, over the coming months, we may have to become increasingly comfortable. This is an enormous responsibility, the shift of resources between one population in need and another, and decisions should be based on data, not bias or hunch. We know that untreated cancer is life threatening, but there is a difference between untreated and delayed. What is a safe time to wait for gynecologic cancer surgery after diagnosis without negatively affecting survival from that cancer?
As I looked through my own upcoming surgical schedule, I sought guidance from the American College of Surgeons’ website, updated on March 17, 2020. In this site they tabulate an “Elective Surgery Acuity Scale” in which “most cancers” fit into tier 3a, which corresponds to high acuity surgery – “do not postpone.” This definition is fairly generalized and blunt; it does not account for the differences in cancers and occasional voluntary needs to postpone a patient’s cancer surgery for health optimization. There are limited data that measure the impact of surgical wait times on survival from gynecologic cancer. Most of this research is observational, and therefore, is influenced by confounders causing delay in surgery (e.g., comorbid conditions or socioeconomic factors that limit access to care). However, the current enforced delays are involuntary; driven by the system, not the patient; and access is universally restricted.
Endometrial cancer
Most data regarding outcomes and gynecologic cancer delay come from endometrial cancer. In 2016, Shalowitz et al. evaluated 182,000 endometrial cancer cases documented within the National Cancer Database (NCDB), which captures approximately 70% of cancer surgeries in the United States.1 They separated these patients into groups of low-grade (grade 1 and 2 endometrioid) and high-grade (grade 3 endometrioid and nonendometrioid) cancers, and evaluated the groups for their overall survival, stratified by the time period between diagnosis and surgery. Interestingly, those whose surgery was performed under 2 weeks from diagnosis had worse perioperative mortality and long-term survival. This seems to be a function of lack of medical optimization; low-volume, nonspecialized centers having less wait time; and the presentation of more advanced and symptomatic disease demanding a more urgent surgery. After those initial 2 weeks of worse outcomes, there was a period of stable outcomes and safety in waiting that extended up to 8 weeks for patients with low-grade cancers and up to 18 weeks for patients with high-grade cancers.
It may be counterintuitive to think that surgical delay affects patients with high-grade endometrial cancers less. These are more aggressive cancers, and there is patient and provider concern for metastatic spread with time elapsed. But an expedited surgery does not appear to be necessary for this group. The Shalowitz study demonstrated no risk for upstaging with surgical delay, meaning that advanced stage was not more likely to be identified in patients whose surgery was delayed, compared with those performed earlier. This observation suggests that the survival from high-grade endometrial cancers is largely determined by factors that cannot be controlled by the surgeon such as the stage at diagnosis, occult spread, and decreased responsiveness of the tumor to adjuvant therapy. In other words, fast-tracking these patients to surgery has limited influence on the outcomes for high-grade endometrial cancers.
For low-grade cancers, adverse outcomes were seen with a surgical delay of more than 8 weeks. But this may not have been caused by progression of disease (low-grade cancers also were not upstaged with delays), but rather may reflect that, in normal times, elective delays of more than 8 weeks are a function of necessary complex medical optimization of comorbidities (such as obesity-related disease). The survival that is measured by NCDB is not disease specific, and patients with comorbidities will be more likely to have impaired overall survival.
A systematic review of all papers that looked at endometrial cancer outcomes associated with surgical delay determined that it is reasonable to delay surgery for up to 8 weeks.2
Ovarian cancer
The data for ovarian cancer surgery is more limited. Most literature discusses the impact of delay in the time between surgery and the receipt of adjuvant chemotherapy, but there are limited data exploring how a delay in primary debulking negatively affects patients. This is perhaps because advanced ovarian cancer surgery rarely is delayed because of symptoms and apparent advanced stage at diagnosis. When a patient’s surgery does need to be voluntarily delayed, for example for medical optimization, there is the option of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in which surgery is performed after three or more cycles of chemotherapy. NACT has been shown in multiple studies to have noninferior cancer outcomes, compared with primary debulking surgery.3,4
Perhaps in this current environment in which access to operating rooms and supplies is rationed, we should consider offering more, or all, patients NACT? Hospital stays after primary cytoreductive surgeries are typically 3-7 days in length, and these patients are at a higher risk, compared with other gynecologic cancer surgeries, of ICU admission and blood transfusions, both limited resources in this current environment. The disadvantage of this approach is that, while chemotherapy can keep patients out of the hospital so that they can practice social distancing, this particular therapy adds to the immunocompromised population. However, even patients who undergo primary surgical cytoreductive surgery will need to rapidly transition to immunosuppressive cytotoxic therapy; therefore it is unlikely that this can be avoided entirely during this time.
Lower genital tract cancers
Surgery for patients with lower genital tract cancers – such as cervical and vulvar cancer – also can probably be safely delayed for a 4-week period, and possibly longer. A Canadian retrospective study looked collectively at cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers evaluating for disease progression associated with delay to surgery, using 28 days as a benchmark for delayed surgery.5 They found no significant increased progression associated with surgical delay greater than 28 days. This study evaluated progression of cancer and did not measure cancer survival, although it is unlikely we would see impaired survival without a significant increase in disease progression.
We also can look to outcomes from delayed radical hysterectomy for stage I cervical cancer in pregnancy to provided us with some data. A retrospective cohort study observed no difference in survival when 28 women with early-stage cervical cancer who were diagnosed in pregnancy (average wait time 20 weeks from diagnosis to treatment) were compared with the outcomes of 52 matched nonpregnant control patients (average wait time 8 weeks). Their survival was 89% versus 94% respectively (P = .08).6
Summary
Synthesizing this data, it appears that, in an environment of competing needs and resources, it is reasonable and safe to delay surgery for patients with gynecologic cancers for 4-6 weeks and potentially longer. This includes patients with high-grade endometrial cancers. Clearly, these decisions should be individualized to patients and different health systems. For example, a patient who presents with a cancer-associated life-threatening bowel obstruction or hemorrhage may need an immediate intervention, and communities minimally affected by the coronavirus pandemic may have more allowances for surgery. With respect to patient anxiety, most patients with cancer are keen to have surgery promptly, and breaking the news to them that their surgery may be delayed because of institutional and public health needs will be difficult. However, the data support that this is likely safe.
Dr. Rossi is assistant professor in the division of gynecologic oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She had no relevant financial disclosures. Email Dr. Rossi at [email protected].
References
1. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):268 e1-68 e18.
2. Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol 2020;246:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ejogrb.2020.01.004.
3. N Engl J Med 2010;363(10):943-53.
4. Lancet 2015;386(9990):249-57.
5. J Obstet Gynaecol Can 2015;37(4):338-44.
6. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2017;216(3):276 e1-76 e6. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2016.10.034.
Cancer care and COVID-19 in Seattle, the first U.S. epicenter
Two months after the first patient with COVID-19 was identified in China, the first case was reported in the United States in the Seattle, Washington, metropolitan area.
Seattle rapidly became the first US epicenter for COVID-19, and local experts are now offering their expertise and advice on how to provide optimal cancer care during the pandemic in a special feature published online March 20 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
“We began implementing measures in early March, including infection control and screening of visitors, staff, and patients at the door,” said lead author Masumi Ueda, MD, who holds positions at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the University of Washington, and the Fred Hutchinson Research Center.
“A lot of changes have been implemented, and it changes on a daily basis. We are responding to the growing rate of COVID-19 infection in the community,” she told Medscape Medical News.
Ueda notes that as a result of the quick implementation of new procedures, so far, very few cancer patients at their facilities have been infected by the virus. “It has not hit our cancer population hard, which is a good thing,” she said.
Create “Incident Command Structure”
In sharing their experience, the authors emphasize the importance of keeping channels of communication open between all stakeholders ― administrators and staff, patients, caregivers, and the general public. They also recommend that each facility create an “incident command structure” that can provide early coordination of institution-wide efforts and that can rapidly respond to changing information.
Ueda noted that their command structure was set up very early on, “so we could get communication set up and start building an infrastructure for response.”
Several areas of care that required new strategies were addressed, both to protect patients and to work around staff shortages caused by possible exposure and/or school closings, as well as projected shortages of supplies and hospital resources.
First and foremost was to identify patients and visitors who had respiratory symptoms and to provide them with masks. Although this is always routine practice during the respiratory virus season, screening has now been initiated at entry points throughout the system.
“We were lucky in Seattle and Washington state in that the University of Washington virology lab developed PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing early on for COVID-19, which subsequently got FDA approval,” said Ueda. “So we were able to have local testing and didn’t have to rely on the state lab. Testing has also been rapidly scaled up.”
Initiating a comprehensive policy for testing staff, tracking results and exposures for persons under investigation, and defining when it is possible to return to work are essential elements for maintaining a stable workforce. In addition, reinforcing a strict “stay at home when ill” policy and providing access to testing for symptomatic staff have been key to limiting exposures.
“What is unique to our region is that we had testing early on, and we are turning it around in 24 hours,” she pointed out. “This is important for staff to be able to return to work.” Currently, staff, patients, and visitors are being tested only if they show the cardinal symptoms associated with COVID-19: fever, shortness of breath, and cough, although muscle aches have recently been added to their testing protocol.
“I think if we had unlimited capacity, we might consider testing people who are asymptomatic,” Ueda noted, “although if you don’t have symptoms, you may not have the viral load needed for an accurate test.”
Educational materials explaining infection control were also needed for patients and families, along with signs and a website to provide COVID-19 education. These were quickly developed.
In addition, a telephone triage line was established for patients with mild symptoms in order to minimize exposures in clinics and to lessen the number of patients presenting at emergency departments.
Outpatient Care
Because theirs is a referral center, many cancer patients come from out of town, and so there is concern about exposing nonlocal patients to COVID-19 as the virus spreads in the Seattle area. In addition, staffing shortages due to factors such as illness, exposure, and school closures are anticipated.
To address these problems, an initial priority was to establish a “multilayer” coverage system for the clinics in the event that practitioners had to be quarantined on short notice, the authors explain.
One decision was to reschedule all wellness visits for current patients or to use telemedicine. Capacity for that option expanded quickly, which was greatly helped by the recent decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to lift Medicare restrictions on the use of certain telemedicine services.
Another approach is to defer all consultations for second opinions for patients who were already undergoing treatment and to increase clinic hours of operations and capabilities for acute evaluations. This helps reserve emergency departments and hospital resources for patients who require higher-level care, the authors comment.
Treatment Decisions
Treatment decisions were more challenging to make, the authors note. One decision was that, despite the risk for COVID-19 for patients with solid tumors, adjuvant therapy with curative intent should proceed, they note. Similarly, patients with metastatic disease might lose the window of opportunity for treatment if it is delayed.
Treatment for aggressive hematologic malignancies is usually urgent, and stem cell transplant and cellular immunotherapies that provide curative treatments cannot be delayed in many cases.
Enrollment in clinical trials will most likely be limited to those trials that are most likely to benefit the patient.
Ueda noted that, because their patients come from all over the country, they are now conducting consultations for stem cell transplant by telephone so that nonlocal patients do not have to travel to Seattle. “If there is some way we can delay the treatment, we have taken that approach,” Ueda told Medscape Medical News. “If we can divert a patient to an area that is not as heavily affected, that’s another option we are taking.”
Although cancer surgery is not considered elective, surgical intervention needs to be prioritized, the authors comment. In the Seattle system, there is currently a 2-week ban on elective surgery in the healthcare system, owing to limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), staffing, and beds.
The oncology teams are currently reviewing treatment regimens to determine which treatments might lessen immunosuppression and which treatment options can be moved from the inpatient to the outpatient setting or can be delayed.
Inpatient Care
For hospitalized patients, several issues are being addressed. The priority is to prepare for an upcoming shortage of beds and resources because of the surge of patients with COVID-19 that is predicted. For both clinic and hospitalized patients, shortages of blood products have necessitated stricter adherence to thresholds for transfusion, and consideration is being given to lowering those thresholds.
Another important problem is the need to conserve PPE, which includes masks, gowns, gloves, and other products. The Seattle teams have implemented solutions such as favoring handwashing with soap and water over the use of hand gel for standard-precaution rooms, limiting the number of personnel entering patient rooms (so as to use less PPE), and reducing nursing procedures that require PPE, such as measuring urine output, unless they are necessary.
In addition, a no-visitor policy has been adopted in inpatient units to conserve PPE, with the exception of end-of-life situations.
The Future
The future trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic is uncertain, Ueda commented. She emphasized that “we must continue to prepare for its widespread impact. The unknown is what we are looking at. We are expecting it to evolve, and the number of infections cannot go down.”
Ueda and coauthors end their article on a positive note. “To many of us, this has become the health care challenge of our generation, one that modern cancer therapy has never had to face. We will prevail, and when the pandemic ends, we will all be proud of what we did for our patients and each other in this critical moment for humanity.”
Two months after the first patient with COVID-19 was identified in China, the first case was reported in the United States in the Seattle, Washington, metropolitan area.
Seattle rapidly became the first US epicenter for COVID-19, and local experts are now offering their expertise and advice on how to provide optimal cancer care during the pandemic in a special feature published online March 20 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
“We began implementing measures in early March, including infection control and screening of visitors, staff, and patients at the door,” said lead author Masumi Ueda, MD, who holds positions at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the University of Washington, and the Fred Hutchinson Research Center.
“A lot of changes have been implemented, and it changes on a daily basis. We are responding to the growing rate of COVID-19 infection in the community,” she told Medscape Medical News.
Ueda notes that as a result of the quick implementation of new procedures, so far, very few cancer patients at their facilities have been infected by the virus. “It has not hit our cancer population hard, which is a good thing,” she said.
Create “Incident Command Structure”
In sharing their experience, the authors emphasize the importance of keeping channels of communication open between all stakeholders ― administrators and staff, patients, caregivers, and the general public. They also recommend that each facility create an “incident command structure” that can provide early coordination of institution-wide efforts and that can rapidly respond to changing information.
Ueda noted that their command structure was set up very early on, “so we could get communication set up and start building an infrastructure for response.”
Several areas of care that required new strategies were addressed, both to protect patients and to work around staff shortages caused by possible exposure and/or school closings, as well as projected shortages of supplies and hospital resources.
First and foremost was to identify patients and visitors who had respiratory symptoms and to provide them with masks. Although this is always routine practice during the respiratory virus season, screening has now been initiated at entry points throughout the system.
“We were lucky in Seattle and Washington state in that the University of Washington virology lab developed PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing early on for COVID-19, which subsequently got FDA approval,” said Ueda. “So we were able to have local testing and didn’t have to rely on the state lab. Testing has also been rapidly scaled up.”
Initiating a comprehensive policy for testing staff, tracking results and exposures for persons under investigation, and defining when it is possible to return to work are essential elements for maintaining a stable workforce. In addition, reinforcing a strict “stay at home when ill” policy and providing access to testing for symptomatic staff have been key to limiting exposures.
“What is unique to our region is that we had testing early on, and we are turning it around in 24 hours,” she pointed out. “This is important for staff to be able to return to work.” Currently, staff, patients, and visitors are being tested only if they show the cardinal symptoms associated with COVID-19: fever, shortness of breath, and cough, although muscle aches have recently been added to their testing protocol.
“I think if we had unlimited capacity, we might consider testing people who are asymptomatic,” Ueda noted, “although if you don’t have symptoms, you may not have the viral load needed for an accurate test.”
Educational materials explaining infection control were also needed for patients and families, along with signs and a website to provide COVID-19 education. These were quickly developed.
In addition, a telephone triage line was established for patients with mild symptoms in order to minimize exposures in clinics and to lessen the number of patients presenting at emergency departments.
Outpatient Care
Because theirs is a referral center, many cancer patients come from out of town, and so there is concern about exposing nonlocal patients to COVID-19 as the virus spreads in the Seattle area. In addition, staffing shortages due to factors such as illness, exposure, and school closures are anticipated.
To address these problems, an initial priority was to establish a “multilayer” coverage system for the clinics in the event that practitioners had to be quarantined on short notice, the authors explain.
One decision was to reschedule all wellness visits for current patients or to use telemedicine. Capacity for that option expanded quickly, which was greatly helped by the recent decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to lift Medicare restrictions on the use of certain telemedicine services.
Another approach is to defer all consultations for second opinions for patients who were already undergoing treatment and to increase clinic hours of operations and capabilities for acute evaluations. This helps reserve emergency departments and hospital resources for patients who require higher-level care, the authors comment.
Treatment Decisions
Treatment decisions were more challenging to make, the authors note. One decision was that, despite the risk for COVID-19 for patients with solid tumors, adjuvant therapy with curative intent should proceed, they note. Similarly, patients with metastatic disease might lose the window of opportunity for treatment if it is delayed.
Treatment for aggressive hematologic malignancies is usually urgent, and stem cell transplant and cellular immunotherapies that provide curative treatments cannot be delayed in many cases.
Enrollment in clinical trials will most likely be limited to those trials that are most likely to benefit the patient.
Ueda noted that, because their patients come from all over the country, they are now conducting consultations for stem cell transplant by telephone so that nonlocal patients do not have to travel to Seattle. “If there is some way we can delay the treatment, we have taken that approach,” Ueda told Medscape Medical News. “If we can divert a patient to an area that is not as heavily affected, that’s another option we are taking.”
Although cancer surgery is not considered elective, surgical intervention needs to be prioritized, the authors comment. In the Seattle system, there is currently a 2-week ban on elective surgery in the healthcare system, owing to limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), staffing, and beds.
The oncology teams are currently reviewing treatment regimens to determine which treatments might lessen immunosuppression and which treatment options can be moved from the inpatient to the outpatient setting or can be delayed.
Inpatient Care
For hospitalized patients, several issues are being addressed. The priority is to prepare for an upcoming shortage of beds and resources because of the surge of patients with COVID-19 that is predicted. For both clinic and hospitalized patients, shortages of blood products have necessitated stricter adherence to thresholds for transfusion, and consideration is being given to lowering those thresholds.
Another important problem is the need to conserve PPE, which includes masks, gowns, gloves, and other products. The Seattle teams have implemented solutions such as favoring handwashing with soap and water over the use of hand gel for standard-precaution rooms, limiting the number of personnel entering patient rooms (so as to use less PPE), and reducing nursing procedures that require PPE, such as measuring urine output, unless they are necessary.
In addition, a no-visitor policy has been adopted in inpatient units to conserve PPE, with the exception of end-of-life situations.
The Future
The future trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic is uncertain, Ueda commented. She emphasized that “we must continue to prepare for its widespread impact. The unknown is what we are looking at. We are expecting it to evolve, and the number of infections cannot go down.”
Ueda and coauthors end their article on a positive note. “To many of us, this has become the health care challenge of our generation, one that modern cancer therapy has never had to face. We will prevail, and when the pandemic ends, we will all be proud of what we did for our patients and each other in this critical moment for humanity.”
Two months after the first patient with COVID-19 was identified in China, the first case was reported in the United States in the Seattle, Washington, metropolitan area.
Seattle rapidly became the first US epicenter for COVID-19, and local experts are now offering their expertise and advice on how to provide optimal cancer care during the pandemic in a special feature published online March 20 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
“We began implementing measures in early March, including infection control and screening of visitors, staff, and patients at the door,” said lead author Masumi Ueda, MD, who holds positions at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the University of Washington, and the Fred Hutchinson Research Center.
“A lot of changes have been implemented, and it changes on a daily basis. We are responding to the growing rate of COVID-19 infection in the community,” she told Medscape Medical News.
Ueda notes that as a result of the quick implementation of new procedures, so far, very few cancer patients at their facilities have been infected by the virus. “It has not hit our cancer population hard, which is a good thing,” she said.
Create “Incident Command Structure”
In sharing their experience, the authors emphasize the importance of keeping channels of communication open between all stakeholders ― administrators and staff, patients, caregivers, and the general public. They also recommend that each facility create an “incident command structure” that can provide early coordination of institution-wide efforts and that can rapidly respond to changing information.
Ueda noted that their command structure was set up very early on, “so we could get communication set up and start building an infrastructure for response.”
Several areas of care that required new strategies were addressed, both to protect patients and to work around staff shortages caused by possible exposure and/or school closings, as well as projected shortages of supplies and hospital resources.
First and foremost was to identify patients and visitors who had respiratory symptoms and to provide them with masks. Although this is always routine practice during the respiratory virus season, screening has now been initiated at entry points throughout the system.
“We were lucky in Seattle and Washington state in that the University of Washington virology lab developed PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing early on for COVID-19, which subsequently got FDA approval,” said Ueda. “So we were able to have local testing and didn’t have to rely on the state lab. Testing has also been rapidly scaled up.”
Initiating a comprehensive policy for testing staff, tracking results and exposures for persons under investigation, and defining when it is possible to return to work are essential elements for maintaining a stable workforce. In addition, reinforcing a strict “stay at home when ill” policy and providing access to testing for symptomatic staff have been key to limiting exposures.
“What is unique to our region is that we had testing early on, and we are turning it around in 24 hours,” she pointed out. “This is important for staff to be able to return to work.” Currently, staff, patients, and visitors are being tested only if they show the cardinal symptoms associated with COVID-19: fever, shortness of breath, and cough, although muscle aches have recently been added to their testing protocol.
“I think if we had unlimited capacity, we might consider testing people who are asymptomatic,” Ueda noted, “although if you don’t have symptoms, you may not have the viral load needed for an accurate test.”
Educational materials explaining infection control were also needed for patients and families, along with signs and a website to provide COVID-19 education. These were quickly developed.
In addition, a telephone triage line was established for patients with mild symptoms in order to minimize exposures in clinics and to lessen the number of patients presenting at emergency departments.
Outpatient Care
Because theirs is a referral center, many cancer patients come from out of town, and so there is concern about exposing nonlocal patients to COVID-19 as the virus spreads in the Seattle area. In addition, staffing shortages due to factors such as illness, exposure, and school closures are anticipated.
To address these problems, an initial priority was to establish a “multilayer” coverage system for the clinics in the event that practitioners had to be quarantined on short notice, the authors explain.
One decision was to reschedule all wellness visits for current patients or to use telemedicine. Capacity for that option expanded quickly, which was greatly helped by the recent decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to lift Medicare restrictions on the use of certain telemedicine services.
Another approach is to defer all consultations for second opinions for patients who were already undergoing treatment and to increase clinic hours of operations and capabilities for acute evaluations. This helps reserve emergency departments and hospital resources for patients who require higher-level care, the authors comment.
Treatment Decisions
Treatment decisions were more challenging to make, the authors note. One decision was that, despite the risk for COVID-19 for patients with solid tumors, adjuvant therapy with curative intent should proceed, they note. Similarly, patients with metastatic disease might lose the window of opportunity for treatment if it is delayed.
Treatment for aggressive hematologic malignancies is usually urgent, and stem cell transplant and cellular immunotherapies that provide curative treatments cannot be delayed in many cases.
Enrollment in clinical trials will most likely be limited to those trials that are most likely to benefit the patient.
Ueda noted that, because their patients come from all over the country, they are now conducting consultations for stem cell transplant by telephone so that nonlocal patients do not have to travel to Seattle. “If there is some way we can delay the treatment, we have taken that approach,” Ueda told Medscape Medical News. “If we can divert a patient to an area that is not as heavily affected, that’s another option we are taking.”
Although cancer surgery is not considered elective, surgical intervention needs to be prioritized, the authors comment. In the Seattle system, there is currently a 2-week ban on elective surgery in the healthcare system, owing to limited availability of personal protective equipment (PPE), staffing, and beds.
The oncology teams are currently reviewing treatment regimens to determine which treatments might lessen immunosuppression and which treatment options can be moved from the inpatient to the outpatient setting or can be delayed.
Inpatient Care
For hospitalized patients, several issues are being addressed. The priority is to prepare for an upcoming shortage of beds and resources because of the surge of patients with COVID-19 that is predicted. For both clinic and hospitalized patients, shortages of blood products have necessitated stricter adherence to thresholds for transfusion, and consideration is being given to lowering those thresholds.
Another important problem is the need to conserve PPE, which includes masks, gowns, gloves, and other products. The Seattle teams have implemented solutions such as favoring handwashing with soap and water over the use of hand gel for standard-precaution rooms, limiting the number of personnel entering patient rooms (so as to use less PPE), and reducing nursing procedures that require PPE, such as measuring urine output, unless they are necessary.
In addition, a no-visitor policy has been adopted in inpatient units to conserve PPE, with the exception of end-of-life situations.
The Future
The future trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic is uncertain, Ueda commented. She emphasized that “we must continue to prepare for its widespread impact. The unknown is what we are looking at. We are expecting it to evolve, and the number of infections cannot go down.”
Ueda and coauthors end their article on a positive note. “To many of us, this has become the health care challenge of our generation, one that modern cancer therapy has never had to face. We will prevail, and when the pandemic ends, we will all be proud of what we did for our patients and each other in this critical moment for humanity.”
Preventable diseases could gain a foothold because of COVID-19
There is a highly infectious virus spreading around the world and it is targeting the most vulnerable among us. It is among the most contagious of human diseases, spreading through the air unseen. No, it isn’t the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. It’s measles.
Remember measles? Outbreaks in recent years have brought the disease, which once was declared eliminated in the United States, back into the news and public awareness, but measles never has really gone away. Every year there are millions of cases worldwide – in 2018 alone there were nearly 10 million estimated cases and 142,300 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The good news is that measles vaccination is highly effective, at about 97% after the recommended two doses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “because of vaccination, more than 21 million lives have been saved and measles deaths have been reduced by 80% since 2000.” This is a tremendous public health success and a cause for celebration. But our work is not done. The recent increases in vaccine hesitancy and refusal in many countries has contributed to the resurgence of measles worldwide.
Influenza still is in full swing with the CDC reporting high activity in 1 states for the week ending April 4th. Seasonal influenza, according to currently available data, has a lower fatality rate than COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it is harmless. Thus far in the 2019-2020 flu season, there have been at least 24,000 deaths because of influenza in the United States alone, 166 of which were among pediatric patients.*
Like many pediatricians, I have seen firsthand the impact of vaccine-preventable illnesses like influenza, pertussis, and varicella. I have personally cared for an infant with pertussis who had to be intubated and on a ventilator for nearly a week. I have told the family of a child with cancer that they would have to be admitted to the hospital yet again for intravenous antiviral medication because that little rash turned out to be varicella. I have performed CPR on a previously healthy teenager with the flu whose heart was failing despite maximum ventilator support. All these illnesses might have been prevented had these patients or those around them been appropriately vaccinated.
Right now, the United States and governments around the world are taking unprecedented public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, directing the public to stay home, avoid unnecessary contact with other people, practice good hand-washing and infection-control techniques. In order to promote social distancing, many primary care clinics are canceling nonurgent appointments or converting them to virtual visits, including some visits for routine vaccinations for older children, teens, and adults. This is a responsible choice to keep potentially asymptomatic people from spreading COVID-19, but once restrictions begin to lift, we all will need to act to help our patients catch up on these missing vaccinations.
This pandemic has made it more apparent than ever that we all rely upon each other to stay healthy. While this pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life, we can’t let it disrupt one of the great successes in health care today: the prevention of serious illnesses. As soon as it is safe to do so, we must help and encourage patients to catch up on missing vaccinations. It’s rare that preventative public health measures and vaccine developments are in the nightly news, so we should use this increased public awareness to ensure patients are well educated and protected from every disease. As part of this, we must continue our efforts to share accurate information on the safety and efficacy of routine vaccination. And when there is a vaccine for COVID-19? Let’s make sure everyone gets that too.
Dr. Leighton is a pediatrician in the ED at Children’s National Hospital and currently is completing her MPH in health policy at George Washington University, both in Washington. She had no relevant financial disclosures.*
* This article was updated 4/10/2020.
There is a highly infectious virus spreading around the world and it is targeting the most vulnerable among us. It is among the most contagious of human diseases, spreading through the air unseen. No, it isn’t the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. It’s measles.
Remember measles? Outbreaks in recent years have brought the disease, which once was declared eliminated in the United States, back into the news and public awareness, but measles never has really gone away. Every year there are millions of cases worldwide – in 2018 alone there were nearly 10 million estimated cases and 142,300 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The good news is that measles vaccination is highly effective, at about 97% after the recommended two doses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “because of vaccination, more than 21 million lives have been saved and measles deaths have been reduced by 80% since 2000.” This is a tremendous public health success and a cause for celebration. But our work is not done. The recent increases in vaccine hesitancy and refusal in many countries has contributed to the resurgence of measles worldwide.
Influenza still is in full swing with the CDC reporting high activity in 1 states for the week ending April 4th. Seasonal influenza, according to currently available data, has a lower fatality rate than COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it is harmless. Thus far in the 2019-2020 flu season, there have been at least 24,000 deaths because of influenza in the United States alone, 166 of which were among pediatric patients.*
Like many pediatricians, I have seen firsthand the impact of vaccine-preventable illnesses like influenza, pertussis, and varicella. I have personally cared for an infant with pertussis who had to be intubated and on a ventilator for nearly a week. I have told the family of a child with cancer that they would have to be admitted to the hospital yet again for intravenous antiviral medication because that little rash turned out to be varicella. I have performed CPR on a previously healthy teenager with the flu whose heart was failing despite maximum ventilator support. All these illnesses might have been prevented had these patients or those around them been appropriately vaccinated.
Right now, the United States and governments around the world are taking unprecedented public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, directing the public to stay home, avoid unnecessary contact with other people, practice good hand-washing and infection-control techniques. In order to promote social distancing, many primary care clinics are canceling nonurgent appointments or converting them to virtual visits, including some visits for routine vaccinations for older children, teens, and adults. This is a responsible choice to keep potentially asymptomatic people from spreading COVID-19, but once restrictions begin to lift, we all will need to act to help our patients catch up on these missing vaccinations.
This pandemic has made it more apparent than ever that we all rely upon each other to stay healthy. While this pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life, we can’t let it disrupt one of the great successes in health care today: the prevention of serious illnesses. As soon as it is safe to do so, we must help and encourage patients to catch up on missing vaccinations. It’s rare that preventative public health measures and vaccine developments are in the nightly news, so we should use this increased public awareness to ensure patients are well educated and protected from every disease. As part of this, we must continue our efforts to share accurate information on the safety and efficacy of routine vaccination. And when there is a vaccine for COVID-19? Let’s make sure everyone gets that too.
Dr. Leighton is a pediatrician in the ED at Children’s National Hospital and currently is completing her MPH in health policy at George Washington University, both in Washington. She had no relevant financial disclosures.*
* This article was updated 4/10/2020.
There is a highly infectious virus spreading around the world and it is targeting the most vulnerable among us. It is among the most contagious of human diseases, spreading through the air unseen. No, it isn’t the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. It’s measles.
Remember measles? Outbreaks in recent years have brought the disease, which once was declared eliminated in the United States, back into the news and public awareness, but measles never has really gone away. Every year there are millions of cases worldwide – in 2018 alone there were nearly 10 million estimated cases and 142,300 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The good news is that measles vaccination is highly effective, at about 97% after the recommended two doses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “because of vaccination, more than 21 million lives have been saved and measles deaths have been reduced by 80% since 2000.” This is a tremendous public health success and a cause for celebration. But our work is not done. The recent increases in vaccine hesitancy and refusal in many countries has contributed to the resurgence of measles worldwide.
Influenza still is in full swing with the CDC reporting high activity in 1 states for the week ending April 4th. Seasonal influenza, according to currently available data, has a lower fatality rate than COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it is harmless. Thus far in the 2019-2020 flu season, there have been at least 24,000 deaths because of influenza in the United States alone, 166 of which were among pediatric patients.*
Like many pediatricians, I have seen firsthand the impact of vaccine-preventable illnesses like influenza, pertussis, and varicella. I have personally cared for an infant with pertussis who had to be intubated and on a ventilator for nearly a week. I have told the family of a child with cancer that they would have to be admitted to the hospital yet again for intravenous antiviral medication because that little rash turned out to be varicella. I have performed CPR on a previously healthy teenager with the flu whose heart was failing despite maximum ventilator support. All these illnesses might have been prevented had these patients or those around them been appropriately vaccinated.
Right now, the United States and governments around the world are taking unprecedented public health measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, directing the public to stay home, avoid unnecessary contact with other people, practice good hand-washing and infection-control techniques. In order to promote social distancing, many primary care clinics are canceling nonurgent appointments or converting them to virtual visits, including some visits for routine vaccinations for older children, teens, and adults. This is a responsible choice to keep potentially asymptomatic people from spreading COVID-19, but once restrictions begin to lift, we all will need to act to help our patients catch up on these missing vaccinations.
This pandemic has made it more apparent than ever that we all rely upon each other to stay healthy. While this pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of daily life, we can’t let it disrupt one of the great successes in health care today: the prevention of serious illnesses. As soon as it is safe to do so, we must help and encourage patients to catch up on missing vaccinations. It’s rare that preventative public health measures and vaccine developments are in the nightly news, so we should use this increased public awareness to ensure patients are well educated and protected from every disease. As part of this, we must continue our efforts to share accurate information on the safety and efficacy of routine vaccination. And when there is a vaccine for COVID-19? Let’s make sure everyone gets that too.
Dr. Leighton is a pediatrician in the ED at Children’s National Hospital and currently is completing her MPH in health policy at George Washington University, both in Washington. She had no relevant financial disclosures.*
* This article was updated 4/10/2020.
COVID-19 prompts ‘lifesaving’ policy change for opioid addiction
In the face of the US COVID-19 pandemic, the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has announced policy changes to allow some patients in opioid treatment programs (OTP) to take home their medication.
According to the agency, states may request “blanket exceptions” for all stable patients in an OTP to receive a 28-day supply of take-home doses of medications such as methadone and buprenorphine, which are used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD).
States may request up to 14 days of take-home medication for patients who are less stable but who can, in the judgment of OTP clinicians, safely handle this level of take-home medication.
“SAMHSA recognizes the evolving issues surrounding COVID-19 and the emerging needs OTPs continue to face,” the agency writes in its updated guidance.
“SAMHSA affirms its commitment to supporting OTPs in any way possible during this time. As such, we are expanding our previous guidance to provide increased flexibility,” the agency said.
A ‘Lifesaving’ Decision
Commenting on the SAMHSA policy change, Richard Saitz, MD, professor and chair of the department of community health sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, said, the policy “is not only a good idea, it is critical and lifesaving.”
“This approach had to be done now. With the reduction in face-to-face visits, patients with opioid use disorder need a way to access treatment. If they cannot get opioid agonists, they would withdraw and return to illicit opioid use and high overdose risk and it would be cruel,” said Saitz.
“It is possible that there will be some diversion and some risk of overdose or misuse, but even for less stable patients the benefit likely far outweighs the risk,” he told Medscape Medical News.
Saitz believes policy changes like this should have been made before a crisis.
“Honestly, this is perhaps a silver lining of the crisis” and could lead to permanent change in how OUD is treated in the US, he said.
“Just like we are learning what can be done without a medical in-person visit, we will learn that it is perfectly fine to treat patients with addiction more like we treat patients with other chronic diseases who take medication that has risks and benefits,” Saitz said.
in cases when a patient is quarantined because of coronavirus.
Typically, only licensed practitioners can dispense or administer OUD medications to patients, but during the COVID-19 crisis, treatment program staff members, law enforcement officers, and national guard personnel will be allowed to deliver OUD medications to an approved “lockbox” at the patient’s doorstep. The change applies only while the coronavirus public health emergency lasts.
“This is also an excellent idea,” Saitz said.
ASAM Also Responds
In addition, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) released a focused update to its National Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (NPG).
The update is “especially critical in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 emergency, which threatens to curtail patient access to evidence-based treatment,” the organization said in a news release. The new document updates the 2015 NPG. It includes 13 new recommendations and major revisions to 35 existing recommendations.
One new recommendation states that comprehensive assessment of a patient is critical for treatment planning, but completing all assessments should not delay or preclude initiating pharmacotherapy for OUD. Another new recommendation states that there is no recommended time limit for pharmacotherapy.
ASAM continues to recommend that patients’ psychosocial needs be assessed and psychosocial treatment offered. However, if patients can’t access psychosocial treatment because they are in isolation or have other risk factors that preclude external interactions, clinicians should not delay initiation of medication for the treatment of addiction.
Expanding the use of telemedicine might also be appropriate for many patients, ASAM announced.
They note that the NPG is the first to address in a single document all medications currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat OUD and opioid withdrawal, including all available buprenorphine formulations.
“All of the updated recommendations are designed to both improve the quality and consistency of care and reduce barriers to access to care for Americans living with OUD. The updated recommendations aim to support initiation of buprenorphine treatment in the emergency department and other urgent care settings,” the society said in the release.
“In addition, [the recommendations] provide greater flexibility on dosing during the initiation of buprenorphine treatment and for initiation of buprenorphine at home (which is also an important change in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis).”
The full document is available online.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
In the face of the US COVID-19 pandemic, the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has announced policy changes to allow some patients in opioid treatment programs (OTP) to take home their medication.
According to the agency, states may request “blanket exceptions” for all stable patients in an OTP to receive a 28-day supply of take-home doses of medications such as methadone and buprenorphine, which are used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD).
States may request up to 14 days of take-home medication for patients who are less stable but who can, in the judgment of OTP clinicians, safely handle this level of take-home medication.
“SAMHSA recognizes the evolving issues surrounding COVID-19 and the emerging needs OTPs continue to face,” the agency writes in its updated guidance.
“SAMHSA affirms its commitment to supporting OTPs in any way possible during this time. As such, we are expanding our previous guidance to provide increased flexibility,” the agency said.
A ‘Lifesaving’ Decision
Commenting on the SAMHSA policy change, Richard Saitz, MD, professor and chair of the department of community health sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, said, the policy “is not only a good idea, it is critical and lifesaving.”
“This approach had to be done now. With the reduction in face-to-face visits, patients with opioid use disorder need a way to access treatment. If they cannot get opioid agonists, they would withdraw and return to illicit opioid use and high overdose risk and it would be cruel,” said Saitz.
“It is possible that there will be some diversion and some risk of overdose or misuse, but even for less stable patients the benefit likely far outweighs the risk,” he told Medscape Medical News.
Saitz believes policy changes like this should have been made before a crisis.
“Honestly, this is perhaps a silver lining of the crisis” and could lead to permanent change in how OUD is treated in the US, he said.
“Just like we are learning what can be done without a medical in-person visit, we will learn that it is perfectly fine to treat patients with addiction more like we treat patients with other chronic diseases who take medication that has risks and benefits,” Saitz said.
in cases when a patient is quarantined because of coronavirus.
Typically, only licensed practitioners can dispense or administer OUD medications to patients, but during the COVID-19 crisis, treatment program staff members, law enforcement officers, and national guard personnel will be allowed to deliver OUD medications to an approved “lockbox” at the patient’s doorstep. The change applies only while the coronavirus public health emergency lasts.
“This is also an excellent idea,” Saitz said.
ASAM Also Responds
In addition, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) released a focused update to its National Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (NPG).
The update is “especially critical in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 emergency, which threatens to curtail patient access to evidence-based treatment,” the organization said in a news release. The new document updates the 2015 NPG. It includes 13 new recommendations and major revisions to 35 existing recommendations.
One new recommendation states that comprehensive assessment of a patient is critical for treatment planning, but completing all assessments should not delay or preclude initiating pharmacotherapy for OUD. Another new recommendation states that there is no recommended time limit for pharmacotherapy.
ASAM continues to recommend that patients’ psychosocial needs be assessed and psychosocial treatment offered. However, if patients can’t access psychosocial treatment because they are in isolation or have other risk factors that preclude external interactions, clinicians should not delay initiation of medication for the treatment of addiction.
Expanding the use of telemedicine might also be appropriate for many patients, ASAM announced.
They note that the NPG is the first to address in a single document all medications currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat OUD and opioid withdrawal, including all available buprenorphine formulations.
“All of the updated recommendations are designed to both improve the quality and consistency of care and reduce barriers to access to care for Americans living with OUD. The updated recommendations aim to support initiation of buprenorphine treatment in the emergency department and other urgent care settings,” the society said in the release.
“In addition, [the recommendations] provide greater flexibility on dosing during the initiation of buprenorphine treatment and for initiation of buprenorphine at home (which is also an important change in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis).”
The full document is available online.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
In the face of the US COVID-19 pandemic, the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has announced policy changes to allow some patients in opioid treatment programs (OTP) to take home their medication.
According to the agency, states may request “blanket exceptions” for all stable patients in an OTP to receive a 28-day supply of take-home doses of medications such as methadone and buprenorphine, which are used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD).
States may request up to 14 days of take-home medication for patients who are less stable but who can, in the judgment of OTP clinicians, safely handle this level of take-home medication.
“SAMHSA recognizes the evolving issues surrounding COVID-19 and the emerging needs OTPs continue to face,” the agency writes in its updated guidance.
“SAMHSA affirms its commitment to supporting OTPs in any way possible during this time. As such, we are expanding our previous guidance to provide increased flexibility,” the agency said.
A ‘Lifesaving’ Decision
Commenting on the SAMHSA policy change, Richard Saitz, MD, professor and chair of the department of community health sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, said, the policy “is not only a good idea, it is critical and lifesaving.”
“This approach had to be done now. With the reduction in face-to-face visits, patients with opioid use disorder need a way to access treatment. If they cannot get opioid agonists, they would withdraw and return to illicit opioid use and high overdose risk and it would be cruel,” said Saitz.
“It is possible that there will be some diversion and some risk of overdose or misuse, but even for less stable patients the benefit likely far outweighs the risk,” he told Medscape Medical News.
Saitz believes policy changes like this should have been made before a crisis.
“Honestly, this is perhaps a silver lining of the crisis” and could lead to permanent change in how OUD is treated in the US, he said.
“Just like we are learning what can be done without a medical in-person visit, we will learn that it is perfectly fine to treat patients with addiction more like we treat patients with other chronic diseases who take medication that has risks and benefits,” Saitz said.
in cases when a patient is quarantined because of coronavirus.
Typically, only licensed practitioners can dispense or administer OUD medications to patients, but during the COVID-19 crisis, treatment program staff members, law enforcement officers, and national guard personnel will be allowed to deliver OUD medications to an approved “lockbox” at the patient’s doorstep. The change applies only while the coronavirus public health emergency lasts.
“This is also an excellent idea,” Saitz said.
ASAM Also Responds
In addition, the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) released a focused update to its National Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (NPG).
The update is “especially critical in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 emergency, which threatens to curtail patient access to evidence-based treatment,” the organization said in a news release. The new document updates the 2015 NPG. It includes 13 new recommendations and major revisions to 35 existing recommendations.
One new recommendation states that comprehensive assessment of a patient is critical for treatment planning, but completing all assessments should not delay or preclude initiating pharmacotherapy for OUD. Another new recommendation states that there is no recommended time limit for pharmacotherapy.
ASAM continues to recommend that patients’ psychosocial needs be assessed and psychosocial treatment offered. However, if patients can’t access psychosocial treatment because they are in isolation or have other risk factors that preclude external interactions, clinicians should not delay initiation of medication for the treatment of addiction.
Expanding the use of telemedicine might also be appropriate for many patients, ASAM announced.
They note that the NPG is the first to address in a single document all medications currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat OUD and opioid withdrawal, including all available buprenorphine formulations.
“All of the updated recommendations are designed to both improve the quality and consistency of care and reduce barriers to access to care for Americans living with OUD. The updated recommendations aim to support initiation of buprenorphine treatment in the emergency department and other urgent care settings,” the society said in the release.
“In addition, [the recommendations] provide greater flexibility on dosing during the initiation of buprenorphine treatment and for initiation of buprenorphine at home (which is also an important change in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis).”
The full document is available online.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.
COVID-19: U.S. cardiology groups reaffirm continued use of RAAS-active drugs
Controversy continued over the potential effect of drugs that interfere with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system via the angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) may have on exacerbating infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
A joint statement from the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and the Heart Failure Society of America on March 17 gave full, unqualified support to maintaining patients on drugs that work this way, specifically the ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), which together form a long-standing cornerstone of treatment for hypertension, heart failure, and ischemic heart disease.
The three societies “recommend continuation” of ACE inhibitors or ARBs “for all patients already prescribed.” The statement went on to say that patients already diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection “should be fully evaluated before adding or removing any treatments, and any changes to their treatment should be based on the latest scientific evidence and shared decision making with their physician and health care team.”
“We understand the concern – as it has become clear that people with cardiovascular disease are at much higher risk of serious complications including death from COVID-19. However, we have reviewed the latest research – the evidence does not confirm the need to discontinue ACE inhibitors or ARBs, and we strongly recommend all physicians to consider the individual needs of each patient before making any changes to ACE-inhibitor or ARB treatment regimens,” said Robert A. Harrington, MD, president of the American Heart Association and professor and chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, in the statement.
“There are no experimental or clinical data demonstrating beneficial or adverse outcomes among COVID-19 patients using ACE-inhibitor or ARB medications,” added Richard J. Kovacs, MD, president of the American College of Cardiology and professor of cardiology at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
The “latest research” referred to in the statement likely focuses on a report that had appeared less than a week earlier in a British journal that hypothesized a possible increase in the susceptibility of human epithelial cells of the lungs, intestine, kidneys, and blood vessels exposed to these or certain other drugs, like the thiazolidinedione oral diabetes drugs or ibuprofen, because they cause up-regulation of the ACE2 protein in cell membranes, and ACE2 is the primary cell-surface receptor that allows the SARS-CoV-2 virus to enter.
“We therefore hypothesize that diabetes and hypertension treatment with ACE2-stimulating drugs increases the risk of developing severe and fatal COVID-19,” wrote Michael Roth, MD, and his associates in their recent article (Lancet Resp Med. 2020 Mar 11. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600[20]30116-8). While the potential clinical impact of an increase in the number of ACE2 molecules in a cell’s surface membrane remains uninvestigated, the risk this phenomenon poses should mean that patients taking these drugs should receive heightened monitoring for COVID-19 disease, suggested Dr. Roth, a professor of biomedicine who specializes in studying inflammatory lung diseases including asthma, and associates.
However, others who have considered the impact that ACE inhibitors and ARBs might have on ACE2 and COVID-19 infections have noted that the picture is not simple. “Higher ACE2 expression following chronically medicating SARS‐CoV‐2 infected patients with AT1R [angiotensin receptor 1] blockers, while seemingly paradoxical, may protect them against acute lung injury rather than putting them at higher risk to develop SARS. This may be accounted for by two complementary mechanisms: blocking the excessive angiotensin‐mediated AT1R activation caused by the viral infection, as well as up-regulating ACE2, thereby reducing angiotensin production by ACE and increasing the production” of a vasodilating form of angiotensin, wrote David Gurwitz, PhD, in a recently published editorial (Drug Dev Res. 2020 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/ddr.21656). A data-mining approach may allow researchers to determine whether patients who received drugs that interfere with angiotensin 1 function prior to being diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection had a better disease outcome, suggested Dr. Gurwitz, a molecular geneticist at Tel Aviv University in Jerusalem.
The statement from the three U.S. cardiology societies came a few days following a similar statement of support for ongoing use of ACE inhibitors and ARBs from the European Society of Cardiology’s Council on Hypertension.
Dr. Harrington, Dr. Kovacs, Dr. Roth, and Dr. Gurwitz had no relevant disclosures.
Controversy continued over the potential effect of drugs that interfere with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system via the angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) may have on exacerbating infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
A joint statement from the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and the Heart Failure Society of America on March 17 gave full, unqualified support to maintaining patients on drugs that work this way, specifically the ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), which together form a long-standing cornerstone of treatment for hypertension, heart failure, and ischemic heart disease.
The three societies “recommend continuation” of ACE inhibitors or ARBs “for all patients already prescribed.” The statement went on to say that patients already diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection “should be fully evaluated before adding or removing any treatments, and any changes to their treatment should be based on the latest scientific evidence and shared decision making with their physician and health care team.”
“We understand the concern – as it has become clear that people with cardiovascular disease are at much higher risk of serious complications including death from COVID-19. However, we have reviewed the latest research – the evidence does not confirm the need to discontinue ACE inhibitors or ARBs, and we strongly recommend all physicians to consider the individual needs of each patient before making any changes to ACE-inhibitor or ARB treatment regimens,” said Robert A. Harrington, MD, president of the American Heart Association and professor and chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, in the statement.
“There are no experimental or clinical data demonstrating beneficial or adverse outcomes among COVID-19 patients using ACE-inhibitor or ARB medications,” added Richard J. Kovacs, MD, president of the American College of Cardiology and professor of cardiology at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
The “latest research” referred to in the statement likely focuses on a report that had appeared less than a week earlier in a British journal that hypothesized a possible increase in the susceptibility of human epithelial cells of the lungs, intestine, kidneys, and blood vessels exposed to these or certain other drugs, like the thiazolidinedione oral diabetes drugs or ibuprofen, because they cause up-regulation of the ACE2 protein in cell membranes, and ACE2 is the primary cell-surface receptor that allows the SARS-CoV-2 virus to enter.
“We therefore hypothesize that diabetes and hypertension treatment with ACE2-stimulating drugs increases the risk of developing severe and fatal COVID-19,” wrote Michael Roth, MD, and his associates in their recent article (Lancet Resp Med. 2020 Mar 11. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600[20]30116-8). While the potential clinical impact of an increase in the number of ACE2 molecules in a cell’s surface membrane remains uninvestigated, the risk this phenomenon poses should mean that patients taking these drugs should receive heightened monitoring for COVID-19 disease, suggested Dr. Roth, a professor of biomedicine who specializes in studying inflammatory lung diseases including asthma, and associates.
However, others who have considered the impact that ACE inhibitors and ARBs might have on ACE2 and COVID-19 infections have noted that the picture is not simple. “Higher ACE2 expression following chronically medicating SARS‐CoV‐2 infected patients with AT1R [angiotensin receptor 1] blockers, while seemingly paradoxical, may protect them against acute lung injury rather than putting them at higher risk to develop SARS. This may be accounted for by two complementary mechanisms: blocking the excessive angiotensin‐mediated AT1R activation caused by the viral infection, as well as up-regulating ACE2, thereby reducing angiotensin production by ACE and increasing the production” of a vasodilating form of angiotensin, wrote David Gurwitz, PhD, in a recently published editorial (Drug Dev Res. 2020 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/ddr.21656). A data-mining approach may allow researchers to determine whether patients who received drugs that interfere with angiotensin 1 function prior to being diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection had a better disease outcome, suggested Dr. Gurwitz, a molecular geneticist at Tel Aviv University in Jerusalem.
The statement from the three U.S. cardiology societies came a few days following a similar statement of support for ongoing use of ACE inhibitors and ARBs from the European Society of Cardiology’s Council on Hypertension.
Dr. Harrington, Dr. Kovacs, Dr. Roth, and Dr. Gurwitz had no relevant disclosures.
Controversy continued over the potential effect of drugs that interfere with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system via the angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) may have on exacerbating infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
A joint statement from the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, and the Heart Failure Society of America on March 17 gave full, unqualified support to maintaining patients on drugs that work this way, specifically the ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), which together form a long-standing cornerstone of treatment for hypertension, heart failure, and ischemic heart disease.
The three societies “recommend continuation” of ACE inhibitors or ARBs “for all patients already prescribed.” The statement went on to say that patients already diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection “should be fully evaluated before adding or removing any treatments, and any changes to their treatment should be based on the latest scientific evidence and shared decision making with their physician and health care team.”
“We understand the concern – as it has become clear that people with cardiovascular disease are at much higher risk of serious complications including death from COVID-19. However, we have reviewed the latest research – the evidence does not confirm the need to discontinue ACE inhibitors or ARBs, and we strongly recommend all physicians to consider the individual needs of each patient before making any changes to ACE-inhibitor or ARB treatment regimens,” said Robert A. Harrington, MD, president of the American Heart Association and professor and chair of medicine at Stanford (Calif.) University, in the statement.
“There are no experimental or clinical data demonstrating beneficial or adverse outcomes among COVID-19 patients using ACE-inhibitor or ARB medications,” added Richard J. Kovacs, MD, president of the American College of Cardiology and professor of cardiology at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
The “latest research” referred to in the statement likely focuses on a report that had appeared less than a week earlier in a British journal that hypothesized a possible increase in the susceptibility of human epithelial cells of the lungs, intestine, kidneys, and blood vessels exposed to these or certain other drugs, like the thiazolidinedione oral diabetes drugs or ibuprofen, because they cause up-regulation of the ACE2 protein in cell membranes, and ACE2 is the primary cell-surface receptor that allows the SARS-CoV-2 virus to enter.
“We therefore hypothesize that diabetes and hypertension treatment with ACE2-stimulating drugs increases the risk of developing severe and fatal COVID-19,” wrote Michael Roth, MD, and his associates in their recent article (Lancet Resp Med. 2020 Mar 11. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600[20]30116-8). While the potential clinical impact of an increase in the number of ACE2 molecules in a cell’s surface membrane remains uninvestigated, the risk this phenomenon poses should mean that patients taking these drugs should receive heightened monitoring for COVID-19 disease, suggested Dr. Roth, a professor of biomedicine who specializes in studying inflammatory lung diseases including asthma, and associates.
However, others who have considered the impact that ACE inhibitors and ARBs might have on ACE2 and COVID-19 infections have noted that the picture is not simple. “Higher ACE2 expression following chronically medicating SARS‐CoV‐2 infected patients with AT1R [angiotensin receptor 1] blockers, while seemingly paradoxical, may protect them against acute lung injury rather than putting them at higher risk to develop SARS. This may be accounted for by two complementary mechanisms: blocking the excessive angiotensin‐mediated AT1R activation caused by the viral infection, as well as up-regulating ACE2, thereby reducing angiotensin production by ACE and increasing the production” of a vasodilating form of angiotensin, wrote David Gurwitz, PhD, in a recently published editorial (Drug Dev Res. 2020 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/ddr.21656). A data-mining approach may allow researchers to determine whether patients who received drugs that interfere with angiotensin 1 function prior to being diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection had a better disease outcome, suggested Dr. Gurwitz, a molecular geneticist at Tel Aviv University in Jerusalem.
The statement from the three U.S. cardiology societies came a few days following a similar statement of support for ongoing use of ACE inhibitors and ARBs from the European Society of Cardiology’s Council on Hypertension.
Dr. Harrington, Dr. Kovacs, Dr. Roth, and Dr. Gurwitz had no relevant disclosures.