Journal of Oncology Medicine & Practice

Does Covid 19 Infections Have a Significant Risk on Children With Cancer? Single Centre Experience and Recommendations

Abstract

Hala Omer, Zahra AL abbass, Lijee Jamal and Saad ALdaama*

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the Covid-19 infection among pediatric oncology patients diagnosed in our centre in 15 months period starting January 2020, to assess their clinical characteristics, laboratory findings, treatment outcomes, and to address the department and hospital strategies for management of such cases during the pandemic. Our study included 29 subjects. Setting: It is a single centre study at King Fahad Specialist Hospital in Dammam which is 400 beds tertiary referral hospital with 27 beds pediatric oncology Ward, 4 beds bone marrow transplant and 18 bed pediatric oncology day care services. Methods and Results: We retrospectively reviewed all the patients with different types of pediatric malignancies diagnosed with Covid-19 infection from January 2020 to March 2021, from both inpatient and outpatient settings. Data about their type of malignancies, current treatment course, pattern of presentation, and the impact of their Covid -19 infection on their therapy while addressing on the same time the effects of their malignancy pattern and the therapy provided on the severity and morbidity of their Covid-19 infection. The study was approved by the ethics committee with IRB number: ONC0373-dated 14/12/2020. Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, children from different age groups caught COVID-19 infection without any significant age or gender preference; however, fortunately, the clinical manifestations of children’s COVID-19 disease were less severe than those of adult’s patients. In this study, despite the small number of cases and being single institute experience, we found that there is no significant impact of covid-19 infection on children with cancer under therapy in term of significant delays to their treatment, the clinical outcome or for increased complications or fatalities that known to be associated with Covid-19 infection.