Shah Shagun Bhatia, Chawla Rajiv
Department of Anaesthesia, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Sector-5, Rohini, New Delhi, India.
Saudi J Anaesth. 2020 Oct-Dec;14(4):504-509. doi: 10.4103/sja.SJA_317_20. Epub 2020 Sep 24.
Humanity is witnessing an unprecedented tsunami of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Till date, India houses 10,453 confirmed COVID-19 patients with a death toll of 358 nationwide and the number is steadily rising with each passing day. The capital city of Delhi, harbouring 1510 patients, has the dubious distinction of being the second largest hotspot for COVID positive patients in India, second only to the state of Maharashtra. Being immuno-compromised, cancer patients are first more susceptible to catch this virus and secondly may witness a more devastating course. Having cancer is a bigger risk factor for contracting COVID-19 than even old age. "Death due to untreated cancer is a much bigger reality than death due to COVID-19," is one perspective that advocates continuation of cancer therapy in corona times albeit by converting cancer hospitals into virtual corona-free fortresses with several tiers of barriers against corona. The immediate, short and long term implications of the corona pandemic and a nationwide lockdown to curtail it, on cancer patients and their caregivers is discussed at length here tempered with experience from the largest tertiary care oncology setup of Northern India. Rigorous literature review based on Medline, Google scholar, Embase, Cochrane and Scopus database search was utilized.
人类正在目睹2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）患者前所未有的海啸。截至目前，印度有10453例确诊的COVID-19患者，全国死亡人数为358人，而且这一数字每天都在稳步上升。首都德里有1510名患者，是印度COVID阳性患者第二大热点地区，仅次于马哈拉施特拉邦，这一地位令人堪忧。癌症患者由于免疫功能低下，首先更容易感染这种病毒，其次可能会经历更具毁灭性的病程。患癌症甚至比高龄更是感染COVID-19的一个更大风险因素。“因癌症未得到治疗而死亡比因COVID-19死亡更为现实，”这是一种观点，主张在新冠疫情期间继续进行癌症治疗，尽管要将癌症医院转变为设有多层新冠防护屏障的虚拟无新冠堡垒。本文结合印度北部最大的三级肿瘤护理机构的经验，详细讨论了新冠疫情及其全国范围的封锁措施对癌症患者及其护理人员的近期、短期和长期影响。利用基于医学文献数据库（Medline）、谷歌学术、Embase、考克兰系统评价数据库（Cochrane）和Scopus数据库搜索进行了严格的文献综述。
