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Background: Specific data regarding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in pa-tients with neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) are lacking. The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of patients with NENs who tested severe acute respiratory syndrome cor-onavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positive. Material and methods: This is a worldwide study collecting cases of patients with NENs along with a positive nasopharyngeal swab reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for SARS-CoV-2 between June 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021. Centres treating pa-tients with NENs were directly contacted by the principal investigator. Patients with NENs of any primary site, grade and stage were included, excluding small-cell lung carcinoma and mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinoma. Results: Among 81 centres directly contacted, 88.8% responded and 48.6% of them declined due to lack of cases or interest. On March 31st, 2021, eight recruiting centres enrolled 89 pa-tients. The median age was 64 years at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis. Most patients had metastatic, non-functioning, low-/intermediate-grade gastroenteropancreatic NENs on treat-ment with somatostatin analogues and radioligand therapy. Most of them had comorbidities. Only 8% of patients had high-grade NENs and 12% were receiving chemotherapy. Most pa-tients had symptoms or signs of COVID-19, mainly fever and cough. Only 3 patients under-went sub-intensive treatment, whereas most of them received medical therapies, mostly antibiotics. In two third of cases, no changes occurred for the anti-NEN therapy. More than 80% of patients completely recovered without sequelae, whereas 7.8% patients died due to COVID-19. Conclusions: Patients included in this study reflect the typical NEN population regardless of SARS-CoV-2. In most cases, they overcome COVID-19 without need of intensive care, short-term sequelae and discontinuation of systemic oncological therapy. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. |
