Impact of Covid-19 on Management of Patients With Metastatic Melanoma

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Oncotarget

Oncotarget published this trending research paper in Volume 13, entitled, “Impact of Covid-19 on the management of patients with metastatic melanoma" by the researchers from the Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Zurich (USZ), Zurich 8091, Switzerland; Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich (UZH), Zurich 8032, Switzerland; Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland. DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28333 Correspondence to - Michèle Welti - michele.welti@uzh.ch Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://oncotarget.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Foncotarget.28333 Keywords - metastatic melanoma, Covid-19, Sars-CoV-2, immunotherapy, targeted therapy Abstract The Covid-19 pandemic created new uncertainties in the management of metastatic melanoma patients. In particular, the impact of immunotherapy, targeted therapy, or chemotherapy on the risk of Sars-CoV-2 infection and severity was debated. In this study, we analyzed all patients with metastatic melanoma receiving therapy who developed Covid-19 between February 2020 and February 2022. We retrospectively collected demographic data, cancer-specific parameters, melanoma treatment regimen, comorbidities and Covid-19-specific parameters in these patients. Of the 350 patients with metastatic melanoma, 25 had Covid-19. The median age at the time of Covid-19 diagnosis was 66 years (range 36–86), 10 patients were female, and 15 patients were male. The treatment regimen during infection was immunotherapy in 12 cases, followed by targeted therapy (n = 8), chemotherapy (n = 2), and TVEC injections, follow-up and palliative therapy in 1 case each. The severity was mild in 17 patients and 8 had a moderate to critical course. Patients with a severe Covid-19 course were often older and had more comorbidities than patients with a mild infection. Many of the patients had a mild Covid-19 course despite having metastatic melanoma and systemic therapy. We therefore recommend continuing systemic therapy whenever possible, even in such exceptional situations as the Covid-19 pandemic. About Oncotarget Oncotarget is a primarily oncology-focused, peer-reviewed, open access journal. Papers are published continuously within yearly volumes in their final and complete form, and then quickly released to Pubmed. On September 15, 2022, Oncotarget was accepted again for indexing by MEDLINE. Oncotarget is now indexed by Medline/PubMed and PMC/PubMed. To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com and connect with us: SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/oncotargetjrnl/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/OncotargetYouTube LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/oncotarget/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/Oncotarget/ Media Contact MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM 18009220957