• Nadia Montero-Oleas, Raúl Puente-Vallejo, Bárbara León-Micheli, Andrés Imbaquingo-Cabrera, Mónica Silva, Elizabeth Gamarra, Byron Álvarez-Rodas, Nelson Segovia, Pablo Aldaz-Roldan, Cristina Nuñez-Silva, Karina Zurita-Vivero, Alex Carrión, José Molina-Jaramillo, Andrés Rodríguez-Balarezo, Yuri Betancourt, and Luis De Los Reyes.
• Posgrado de Radioterapia, Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador. Address: José Félix Barreiro E15-242 Quito, Ecuador, Código postal: 170209 San Isidro del Inca. Email: nadiamonteromd@gmail.com. ORCID: 0000-0002-5375-3781.
• Medwave. 2020 Sep 7; 20 (8): e8012.

ObjectiveTo generate recommendations on the management of radiotherapeutic treatments during the pandemic, adapted to a country with limited health resources.MethodsWe did a rapid review of the literature, searching for papers that describe any measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection, as well as management guidelines to reduce the workload, in radiotherapy units. The following conditions were included in the scope of this review: gynecological tumors, breast cancer, gastrointestinal tumors, genitourinary tumors, head and neck tumors, skin cancer, tumors of the central nervous system, and lymphomas. An expert group discussed online the extracted data and drafted the recommendations. Using a modified Delphi method, the consensus was reached among 14 certificated radio-oncologists. The quality of the evidence that supported the recommendations on treatment schedules was assessed.ResultsA total of 57 documents were included. Of these, 25 provided strategies to reduce the risk of infection. Recommendations for each condiction were extracted from the remaining documents. The recommendations aim to establish specific parameters where treatments can be omitted, deferred, prioritized, and shortened. Treatment schemes are recommended for each condition, prioritizing hypo-fractionated schemes whenever possible.ConclusionsWe propose strategies for the management of radiotherapy services to guarantee the continuity of high-quality treatments despite the health crisis caused by COVID-19.

41 keywords...

hide…