Study provides key data on safety of head and neck cancer surgery during COVID-19 pandemic
Dec 21 2020
A recent international observational study provides important data on the safety of head and neck cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are published early online in
CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study is part of the COVIDSurg Collaborative, an initiative to describe surgical practices during the early period of the pandemic, when many hospitals had limited capacity and when it was unclear whether it was safer to delay or continue in-hospital cancer treatments.
"The problems were particularly acute in head and neck cancer surgery because for many cases, cure is dependent on surgery, but there was great concern about spreading infection from aerosol-generating procedures in the airway," said corresponding author Richard J. Shaw, MD, FDS, FRCS, of The University of Liverpool Cancer Research Centre, in the U.K.